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Arrivabene insists anger was not at Red Bull

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene insists he was not angry at Red Bull for its tactics late in the Mexican Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen ran wide at Turn 1 when defending third place from Sebastian Vettel, with Red Bull initially telling its driver to give up the place before instructing him to stay in front of the Ferrari. With Verstappen continuing to defend, Vettel came under pressure from Daniel Ricciardo and the two made contact on the penultimate lap, with Vettel later being penalised for moving under braking.

Arrivabene was clearly animated on the pit wall in the closing laps, but speaking before Vettel was demoted from third to fifth place as a result of the Ricciardo incident, he insists his anger was not aimed at Red Bull.

"Of course I was angry, but nothing to do with the other team," Arrivabene said. "I was talking to my people, to move on and to talk with Charlie [Whiting, race director]. I was really ... concentrated on that, and you know my passion and character is like this and I become … [animated]. OK.

"I was really angry and the passion, but I was talking to my team."

Arrivabene later took to team radio in an attempt to calm down a clearly frustrated Vettel, with the German having told Whiting to "f**k off" while deliberating whether to penalised Verstappen.

Transcript following the chequered flag:

Vettel: “He has to give me the position. End of the story.”

Arrivabene: “Sebastian, Sebastian, calm down, calm down. They are under investigation. I know that it is not fair but calm down. Put your head down and we talk afterwards.”

Vettel: “OK, copy Maurizio.”

The FIA is currently looking into Vettel's comments regarding Whiting, despite Vettel having gone in person to apologise to the race director.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.