A screw-up at Red Bull? He showed what he’s really like, Pérez said of Verstappen

The atmosphere in Red Bull after the Sao Paulo Grand Prix could probably be cut up. The Austrian team wanted to resort to a team shootout at the end of the penultimate race of the season to give Sergio Pérez more points in the fight for second place in the drivers’ championship. But Max Verstappen refused to let him go ahead, with his own reasons for doing so…

It was the seventy-first and final lap of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, and the order was as follows. George Russell led the race at Interlagos ahead of Lewis Hamilton, with Carlos Sainz in third ahead of Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso in fifth and the two Red Bull drivers in sixth and seventh.

Notably, Pérez lost his original third place after the race restarted, or rather in its last 10 laps.

The Mexican Red Bull driver did not have the ideal pace on a worn set of medium tyres. However, it was not a matter of poor race strategy, but simple maths.

Pérez was left with only one set of the fastest specification tyres for Sunday’s race, which is what he started on. For the rest of the race, he had virtually no choice but to wear just the medium compound.

His third place was then captured by both Ferrari drivers, plus Alonso on the Alpina. Subsequently, due to team overhead, Pérez also let his teammate go ahead of him, with the intention of trying to get Alonso’s fifth place.

However, if Verstappen failed to do so, he was to let his Mexican teammate back in front of him on the final lap. But that didn’t happen, even though his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase warned him several times via team radio on the last lap of the race that he should give the position back to Pérez.

As you can see for yourself in the attached video above, Lambiase asked Verstappen what had happened after crossing the line. And how did the Dutch rider react?

Verstappen’s reaction

“I already told you last summer, don’t ask me anymore, ok? Are we clear on that? I gave my reasons and I stand by them,” Verstappen said on the team radio.

“I have my reasons. We just discussed it and I think it was better that we finally sat down and talked about it and just moved on. If he needs help in Abu Dhabi, I’ll be there for him.

But it’s a tie (between Pérez and Leclerc – ed.), it’s not the end of the world. Either way, it’s whoeverfinishes first,” Verstappen added in a post-race interview.

Horner apologised to Pérez, but…

He apologised to the 32-year-old via team radio after crossing the line, saying he would speak internally about why Verstappen had not let him back in front. Whereupon Pérez replied – ” Yes, it shows what he really is.”

Pérez lost three and a half seconds to Verstappen at the finish of the Sao Paulo Grand Prix, finishing seventh. Leclerc, driving a Ferrari, finished the penultimate round of the season in fourth place and returned to second in the drivers’ championship, although he and Pérez are tied on points.

Shocking speculation in the Dutch media

Dutch media then came out with speculation that Verstappen was using this to get back at Pérez for his crash at the end of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, where he allegedly crashed on purpose. As a result, Verstappen could not set a better time and finished fourth behind his teammate.

How much of this speculation is true, however, is the big question. They also suggest that Pérez should have admitted this to Christian Horner and Helmut Marko. And now Verstappen has counted him out at Interlagos.

But if it’s true and it turns out that Pérez crashed in Monaco on purpose, then everyone could pay the price. Just remember the crashgate affair, although in this case the instruction came into Nelson Piquet’s headphones from the team.

F1, The Race