Verstappen: I did not ask for team orders to get by Kvyat

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen denies he was seeking team orders to get by the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat as the pair dueled wheel-to-wheel during the Singapore Grand Prix.

After a bad start, Verstappen was making his way through the field when he came upon the man he replaced at Red Bull. It was a 'no holds barred' contest as the pair went for it and at one point Verstappen shouted over the radio: "Come on, man!"

Asked after the race if he was seeking team orders from the pit wall, the teenage Dutchman insisted, "No, no. I don't think that's the order, I think I should get by by myself."

"It was getting quite intense at one point, going a bit off the track. We were just losing a lot of time and of course after such a bad start you are a bit disappointed."

Verstappen's bad start compromised his race, but it appears he and the team were aware that there could be a problem.

He told media after the race, "Before the start the team already said the start wouldn’t be ideal because the clutch wasn’t working properly."

"[Saturday] night they discovered that the clutch wouldn’t bite well, but they weren’t allowed to change anything by the FIA because it wasn’t a structural problem and I was able to race with it."

"I dropped the clutch and just had a lot of wheelspin and then there’s nothing you can do," added Verstappen.

As the field roared off the line, he was lucky not to get collected by Nico Hulkenberg's out of control Force India which flew past the front of the Red Bull before slamming the wall.

"I have no clue [how I avoided contact]. I was very lucky to not get hit, but it was only the start, he would have been behind us," said Verstappen after finishing his last race as an 18 year old in sixth place.