Verstappen 'not as good as' Ricciardo

Max Verstappen is simply not as good a driver as his Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. That is the view of former world champion Jacques Villeneuve, who offered a scathing assessment of the Dutchman amid his error-strewn start to the 2018 season.

Six races in, Verstappen has either spun, crashed or hit another car in every event, with Ricciardo taking victories in China and Monaco that, on another day, perhaps ought to have been Verstappen's.

The pair came to blows fatefully in Azerbaijan, Ricciardo running into the back of a weaving Verstappen to bring about an immediate double DNF.

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Verstappen is sixth in the championship, with less than half the points of his team-mate, while Red Bull are trailing Ferrari and Mercedes in the team standings after seeing points regularly slip through their fingers.

"Verstappen makes mistakes in every race. It happens all the time," 1997 world drivers' champion Villeneuve told Sky Italia.

"It's a bad sign. For example, Ricciardo was not at all to blame for their crash in Baku. He did nothing wrong.

"If a driver is constantly making mistakes, he must calm down and slow down. But to be at Ricciardo's level, he has to take more risks. It can only mean one thing: Max is not as good as Daniel. Full stop."

Team principal Christian Horner has previously called on Verstappen to take lessons from Ricciardo's driving style in order to combat his own issues.

"His team-mate is very polished and the finished article and obviously at a different stage in his development," Horner said after the Baku race.

"I think he can and will learn a lot of lessons from Daniel because, even after the incident in Azerbaijan, there is a respect that he has for him."