Christian Horner returns fire at Nico Rosberg after refusing to do Sky Sports interview

boss had a sly dig at after the German called for to be disqualified from the . Verstappen stole the show in controversial circumstances when he appeared to intentionally drive into the side of during the race, landing him with a 10-second time penalty and three penalty points.

Rosberg was filling in for on F1 co-commentary duties, and he was appalled by Verstappen's conduct. "He needs to get black flagged," said the 2016 world champion. "He just crashed into Russell on purpose just to prove a point. That was horrible. That did not look good. That's bad, bad, bad. That is seriously bad."

Horner will have known he was in for a post-race grilling after Verstappen dropped down to P10 once his penalty was applied. And Sky Sports indicated that Horner told them he had 'nothing to say' when they asked him for an interview.

Later on, Horner did respond to Rosberg's commentary remarks by hitting back: "Nico is quite sensational in the way he commentates, so we will leave it there."

Verstappen himself largely remained tight-lipped on the collision, and when informed about Rosberg calling for him to be black flagged, he said: "That is his opinion. Everyone can have their opinion."

This is not Russell and Verstappen's first run-in. They had a row in the pit lane and exchanged insults publicly after last year's Qatar Grand Prix, where Verstappen was penalised by stewards over an incident with the Mercedes star in qualifying.

And after being rammed at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Russell was not a happy camper. "Totally unnecessary and sort of lets him down. I don't know what he was thinking," he said.

"It doesn't really make sense to deliberately crash into somebody and risk damaging your own car, risk a penalty. You cannot deliberately crash into another driver. You know, we're putting our lives on the line.

"We're fortunate the cars are as safe as they are these days. But we shouldn't take it for granted. Max is such an amazing driver and so many people look up to him. It's a shame that something like that continues to occur."

The result of the Spanish Grand Prix, where McLaren claimed another one-two, has left Verstappen almost 50 points behind Drivers' Championship leader Oscar Piastri. It has also allowed Russell to close the gap on the Dutchman, with the pair now separated by 26 points.