Daniel Ricciardo has pinpointed exactly when he believes former Formula 1 teammate Max Verstappen "matured" during their Red Bull days. Verstappen was promoted to the senior Red Bull team ahead of the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix to partner Ricciardo - firmly established as number one - although the former would win on debut for the team in Barcelona. The duo then raced together until the end of the 2018 season, when Ricciardo decided to depart to Renault as Verstappen began to gain the upper edge on his more experienced teammate. While Verstappen was fast during the 2016-2018 era, he was also involved in multiple incidents on-track, including in the first six races of the '18 campaign.
The nadir for Verstappen was the 2018 Monaco Grand Prix - where he crashed heavily in final practice on a weekend the Red Bull was class of the field. He was unable to take part in qualifying as Ricciardo stormed to pole and converted it, just about following ERS failure, into victory. Verstappen bounced back with a third place on a relatively quiet weekend in Canada next time out, from when arguably his form has not dipped. "He already kind of proved his speed from 2016, if not earlier, but in 2018, I remember the first four or five races he had crashes and quite a lot of mistakes," Ricciardo explained to Viaplay. "He quickly found a way to fix that and mature a lot. "I think in 2018 he made the biggest transition from young boy into man, with some off-track maturity. "It made on his track results more consistent. "To go on and see what he has done, if it can't be me, I'm like: 'I'm glad it's him as at least I put up a fight to him.' "It makes me look okay!"
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