Daniil Kvyat has countered the Red Bull narrative by admitting he was not impressed by former teammate Alex Albon's move to the top team.
Having overlooked Kvyat to replace Pierre Gasly, both Christian Horner and Dr Helmut Marko said after Spa that they had been impressed with Albon's "great" first weekend at Red Bull Racing.
"I don't know why you call it a good first race," Kvyat said at Monza when asked about Albon's showing at Spa.
"In a Red Bull Racing car, he was behind me for 36 laps even though he started ahead of me.
"Maybe in the future he will perform better, but we were fighting for most of the race at Spa. If he was in a Toro Rosso you could call his race amazing, but he was in a Red Bull.
"I'm just commenting on what I saw," Russian Kvyat added.
"Perhaps it was the most the car was capable of, but the fact is that I kept him behind for most of the race. I was very pleased with my race."