While the drivers' championship might have lost some of its 'needle' over the last couple of weeks, it's good to see there is still some competitive edginess in the paddock.

Following Christian Horner's (latest) criticism of Renault following Max Verstappen's retirement from yesterday's Hungarian Grand Prix, Renault boss Cyril Abiteboul has hit back.

"I am not going to get drawn into saying too much," Horner told Sky Sports following Verstappen's retirement, "but we pay multi-millions of pounds for these engines, for a first-class product, a state-of-the-art product, and you can see it is quite clearly some way below that.

"So it is frustrating," he added. "That is what it is. We still have Daniel in the race and I will let Cyril come up with his excuses afterwards."

Reacting to Horner's comment, Abiteboul told Autosport: "Our bosses have stopped reading what Christian Horner is saying about us since 2015.

"It's very clear that we don't want to have any dealings with them anymore. It's very clear it's done.

"They will have their engine partner that will be paying a hell of a lot of money to get their product on board, and I wish them good luck," he added, referring to the Austrian outfit's switch to Honda next season. "I have nothing else to say."

With nine rounds of the 2018 season remaining, one cannot help but feel that things will get a lot messier by the time we leave Abu Dhabi.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by The Canadian, 30/07/2018 19:53

"Spartacus, lord knows I'm a huge Honda fan and have been for a long time, but Honda and everyone else have a lot of ground to make up with Mercedes and Ferrari. .... I agree that future times look better for Honda with Red Bull. I don't agree though that McLaren held them back,. It was only too recently that we watched the 25+hp difference between Honda and the rest at such places as Bahrain, e.g.... And, McLaren has consistently out-performed Torro Rosso this year...
But you have to be a little bit optimistic about Hartley and Gasly's performances last weekend, so I wish them luck... In the meantime, I'll continue to root for McLaren and Williams to climb back to some semblance of what they used to be..."

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2. Posted by F1 Yank, 30/07/2018 19:41

"It took a while for Honda to get on track. It does look like McLaren was the road block in their development so the pairing of Red Bull with Honda may be a great package. With this last race even in the first lap the Mercedes and Ferrari packages were already 3 seconds up!! Pretty amazing and they will be hard to beat!"

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3. Posted by ESTMPRFT, 30/07/2018 18:48

"Nothing new to see here ... move along, move along."

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4. Posted by Greg, 30/07/2018 18:13

"The honda worked ok for TR in Hungary"

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5. Posted by JClark-Monza1967, 30/07/2018 18:00

""You'll wish you had them back when those Honda engines start blowing up without warning."

They already have that "feature" wit the Renualt engines, don't they? The Honda engines show clear signs pf progress this year AND they will cost RB a lot less."

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6. Posted by Tardis40, 30/07/2018 17:22

"You'll wish you had them back when those Honda engines start blowing up without warning."

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Abiteboul hits back at Horner

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