Motor racing-Verstappen and Sainz play down rivalry

LONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - Toro Rosso team mates Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz have played down talk of future friction after their heated track battle in last weekend's season-opening Formula One race in Australia. Verstappen was heard over the team radio asking for Sainz to let him through as both were held up by Renault rookie Jolyon Palmer. The 18-year-old Dutch driver called the team strategy a "joke" in an expletive-laden tirade. Sainz subsequently passed Palmer and finished ninth, with Verstappen 10th after running in fifth place before a re-start. The highly-rated pair also collided shortly before the finish, Verstappen's car making contact with the left rear side of Sainz's and then spinning. "I'm always focusing ahead. So for me, to be honest, it doesn't really affect me as a struggle," Verstappen said on Wednesday when asked whether he rivalry made it difficult to be friends with Sainz. "We want to beat each other on track, but I think everybody wants to beat his team mate, and off-track everything is going well so there are no issues there," the Dutch driver said in an interview with Laureus.com. "We just had a long travel back from Australia, so we didn't have the time yet," added Verstappen when asked whether he and Sainz had talked things over. "But I don't see any big problems in that." Spaniard Sainz, who pitted before Verstappen in another incident that angered his team mate, told the official formula1.com website that their's was a healthy rivalry. "At least from my side I have absolutely no issues with anyone," added the 21-year-old. "I received a touch from behind, saw Max spinning in my mirrors. It was a very interesting race - on the limit, but that's how Formula One should be." Toro Rosso is the junior team to Red Bull Racing, with both owned by Austrian energy drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz. After an impressive debut season, in which Verstappen became the youngest ever Formula One driver, both are eager to make a splash in a year likely to end in a lot of driver movement around the paddock. (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ed Osmond)