Max Verstappen struggled to contain his fury after clashing with Lewis Hamilton at Imola on a day that saw Red Bull flounder.
Hamilton sparked fury from his old rival when he got in Verstappen 's way while the Dutchman was on a flying lap. The Red Bull racer threw his hand up in the air in anger and his Mercedes counterpart pulled alongside his rival to hold his hand up in apology
And Verstappen barely contained his frustration again as he reflected on that incident. He fumed: "It's not the first time. You try to stay calm about it, but it happened again. I don't really want to talk about it too much because that's not our issue - today we were just severely off the pace, which we need to fix."
Verstappen's frustration was heightened by a wretched day for Red Bull. The Dutchman is desperate to get back to winning ways at Imola after he was beaten to victory by Lando Norris in Miami two weeks ago.
But rivals Ferrari have brought upgrades that seemed to work well as Charles Leclerc delighted the Italian fans by topping the timesheets in both practice sessions. And McLaren are expected to be quick again, now that Oscar Piastri also has the same upgraded car as Norris.
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Verstappen wrestled with his Red Bull all day and went off track no fewer than four times across both sessions. On one of those occasions, the 26-year-old punched his steering wheel in frustration.
As he faced the media, his concern for the rest of the weekend was clear. He said: "I'm just not really feeling comfortable in the car. It's moving around a lot and it's very easy to lose the car. So there are a few things that we have to look at, because today... it's just bad, it's uncomfortable and the long run was really bad.
"There are definitely a few things we have to improve if we want to be competitive tomorrow. I guess it can't be worse than today, right? We'll look at a few things that we can do better for tomorrow, but it looks like the others took a bit of a step forward. From our side, just a bad day."
Hamilton was in a much better mood, though, with Mercedes pleased with the initial impact of their own upgrades. He said: "It's been a good start to the weekend. We're a lot closer than we have been, it seems... we are seeing improvements in the car and our performance on track."
And he took the blame for his run-in with Verstappen and said: "Jeez, I was on a cool down lap and thought I was well clear but all of a sudden he was right on me. Ultimately, it was my mistake and I tried to apologise, but I think he was too frustrated already."
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