'I don't care': F1 ace defends explosive rants at own team

Max Verstappen says he has nothing to apologise for after being captured on radio blowing up at his Red Bull team members during the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Dutchman, who confirmed his second position in the title race behind the six-time champion, produced several rants on team radio as he raced round the Circuit de Catalunya.

'TERRIBLE FOR RACING': F1 world erupts over Spanish GP 'disgrace'

'ALMOST A MURDERER': Sinister claim in 300km/h MotoGP crash

‘OH MY GOD’: Moto world in shock over 'horrific' incident

Verstappen dropped the 'f-bomb' at one stage after clearly losing his patience with members of his own team.

The 22-year-old complained about his tyres and moaned about his team's misguided messages to him, in a series of angry exchanges.

“Struggling with rear. Turn Seven is horrible now,” he said about the wear on the tyres.

“Tailwind? I don’t care. The tyres have nothing left.

“Do you want me to repeat it again? The f***ing tyres are dead.”

“I’m losing so much time. Who cares if I’m put in traffic, I’ll easily pass them.”

Later, he added: "How about we just focus on our race first instead of looking to Lewis?"

The team replied calmly, telling him to "get his head down" and concentrate on the race.

“I wanted to pit, and they didn’t call me in, so I was massively struggling on the tyres. I lost quite a bit of lap time over the last two laps," Verstappen explained.

“I already said on the radio, I don’t care if you pit me behind the Racing Points because I would pass them easily anyway because we are faster, especially on new tyres. That was the conversation.

"I think we should not really look to the Mercedes cars and we should do our strategy, but then we pitted and got onto the medium tyre and basically from then onwards it was fine.

"We were slower than Lewis, but I could keep Valtteri (Bottas) behind so everything worked out quite well. It was good to split the two Mercedes. I didn't have the pace like Lewis, but I'm happy with second."

Team boss unfazed by Verstappen blow-up

Red Bull boss Christian Horner said he had no problem with Verstappen's feisty words.

Horner instead praised Verstappen for his passion and the ability to engage in such conversations, while going at break-neck speed around the race track,

"What's incredible is he's got so much capacity to have that conversation," Horner said, amazed at the fact he could argue and drive at the same time.

"It's like he's on a Sunday afternoon drive!

"He obviously doesn't have the visibility of the whole picture that the strategists have and he's ambitious, competitive and he's pushing."

At the finish, Hamilton was 24 seconds clear of Verstappen, with Bottas third.

Verstappen is now 37 points behind Hamilton in the championship and Horner, like many fans, said he hopes to see some close battles between them.

"I think they are the two in-form drivers of Formula One and there's very little to choose between them," Horner said.

"It's interesting. You have Max, who's 22, Lewis who's 35, and they're at different stages of their career, but I'm hopeful in the coming races that we see the two of them go head to head.

"It's what the viewers would love to see. It's what the teams would love to see and I think it would be good for F1."

with agencies