Daniel Ricciardo believes that Sebastian Vettel's controversial🙈 side-swipe on Formula 1 title rival Lewis Hamilton in Baku was not out of character, saying it is part of his competitive per♒sonality.

Vettel's clash with Hamiltonღ has been widely debated in F1 over the past two weeks, with the Ferrari driver receiving a💧n in-race penalty for his move but avoided further sanction.

Vettel issued a public apology to Hamilton and both d🦄rivers have said they will move on from the incident, with Ricciardo saying they would "until ne✱xt time".

A former team-m🍷ate of Vettel at Red Bull, Ricciardo said that the move was not entirely out of character, but thinks it was an ill-judged move in the heat of the moment.

"I w💯ouldn't say out of🗹 character. He showed in the past he is a very competitive personality," Vettel said.

"You hear it on the radio sometimes he just says what he thinks, probably before he thinks. That move was more or♈ less the same. Heat of the moment he just did it.

"He reacted very, very quickl🎃y and then he probably realized: "Ah s**t, maybe I should have not done that." But 🉐I just think it is part of his competitive personality.

"I don't dis🍌like this about him. Part of me adm🔯ires the passion he has to win. We know he can be quite reactive but I don't have a problem with it.

"The penalty was justified aꦉs well, 10 second stop/go was enough."

Looking ahead to this weekend's race in Austria,♐ Ricciardo believes that Red Bull will find itself trailing Mercedes and Ferrari at the front of the pack once again, but believes the gap is shrinking.

"We w♛ill see, hopefully at least fifth but ideally, we can get closer," Ricciardo said when asked about Red Bull's expectations for its home race.

"We are g꧋etting stronger, but this t🎉rack is not our worst, not our best, Max [Verstappen] had a podium here last year, so maybe we can do okay. But Mercedes and Ferrari will still be quite quick here, particularly Mercedes. They normally are quick here and they were quick in Baku.

"They still have an extra setting it seems than everyone else. Here the first sector is more or les🎐s all horsepower, so they will ꦬmake enough step there, even if we can match them in the second and third sector they are still going to be quite strong."