Max Verstappen has admitted to destroying a Ferrari cone on purpose, and pledged to do it again if they put it too close to his Red Bull pit box. The Dutchman is known for his no-nonsense approach when up against his rivals, and it seems that also extends to pieces of equipment if they threaten to hamper his race.

Pictures of a bashed-up orange cone surfaced on social media during the Spanish Grand Prix race weekend, which followed footage of Verstappen mowing it down in his Red Bull. He was shown the picture in an interview with Viaplay and admitted that it was no accident.

"Yeah, that one's mine," he smiled. "Ferrari always put the cones quite far out so I said, 'if this happens one more time I'm ruining it completely'."

Verstappen followed through on his threat in Spain, and he has vowed to leave more cones in tatters if Ferrari keep pushing their luck. "It's been a couple of races," he continued. "I said, 'if it's there again, I'm just driving over it completely'. If it's there again later, I'm running it over again."

The reigning four-time world champion will have afforded himself another smile at Ferrari's expense after bettering both of their drivers in qualifying on Saturday. His time was good enough for third place on the grid, behind the two McLarens, with Lewis Hamilton in fifth and Charles Leclerc seventh.

Afterwards, Verstappen felt that there wasn't much more in the tank given the gap in performance between the Red Bull and the McLaren. "We were lacking all weekend compared to them," he told Sky Sports.

"We executed well. Third is where we more or less should be. It's fun. Around here it's about squeezing everything out of the car. I will try my best [on Sunday] but they will be tough to beat."

He added: "I just go into the weekend and try to extract the most out of our car, and honestly, I think we did. The car didn't feel too bad, it's just not fast enough and that's it. We have to maximise the points that we can get and try to at least put the pressure on, but I'm not sure how much we can do that."

Verstappen is 25 points behind pole-sitter Oscar Piastri in the Drivers' Championship, and 22 shy of Lando Norris, who put his McLaren on the front row at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.