Senna against Prost, Häkkinen against Coulthard, Hamilton against Rosberg – in Formula 1 there have already been spectacular duels within a racing team. Now also with Verstappen and Perez?
In Formula 1, there is actually tension before the Miami Grand Prix on Sunday (May 8th, 2023, races and training runs in the live ticker at sportschau.de) – but only in the question of whether Sergio Perez is a real challenger to Max Verstappen and how long Red Bull allows that.
After Perez’s double triumph last time in Baku, world champion Verstappen’s lead has shrunk to six points: with a win in the “Sunshine State” the Mexican can take the lead.
Verstappen: “Not here to finish second”
It is clear that Verstappen would have a problem with that because he sees himself as the clear number one driver at Red Bull and this has not been disputed so far: “I’m not here to finish second”, the Dutchman just clarified again. Since the competition from Mercedes and Ferrari is still frighteningly lame, the duel between the bulls should decide who will win the 2023 world championship.
Competition within a team has often kept the premier class in suspense, often it was even tougher than battle scenes between drivers from different racing teams.
Senna against Prost, Rosberg against Hamilton
Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost already irritated each other at McLaren at the end of the 80s, and the fight between Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard between 1996 and 2001 in the same team was also pure explosive.
McLaren’s Alain Prost battling for first place with teammate Ayrton Senna at the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix
Things also got wild between Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya and Ralf Schumacher at Williams in the early 2000s. Back at McLaren, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso fought each other in 2007. Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel fought a ruthless duel at Red Bull from 2009 to 2013.
But that was nothing compared to the ensuing stable war between Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, in which the bosses Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda had to dig in again and again because they even drove into each other’s cars and thus endangered the team’s success.
2016 Spanish Grand Prix: Nico Rosberg and Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton collide on lap 1. The race is over for both.
Clear declaration of war by Perez
Do the race strategists at Red Bull intervene now or in the future? In any case, Perez himself sees no reason to only mime the helper and to prepare the next champagne parties for Max Verstappen as quickly as possible. “I’m definitely fighting for the title”, the Mexican just emphasized again just to be on the safe side, and he also found a comprehensible reason for it: “Anyone who sits in this incredible car and doesn’t want to be world champion has the wrong attitude.”
The fact that Verstappen is quite annoyed by this was indicated after the Grand Prix in Baku, when his team robbed him of victory with a premature pit stop during a safety car phase – he then criticized his own race directors surprisingly clearly.
Horner: “Like the ebb and flow”
So far he has been respectful of Perez, but whether the relationship will remain on this sporting basis cannot be conclusively judged after four races. In any case, Red Bull still doesn’t seem to see any reason for external intervention, in Baku it could even have been justified by the fact that Verstappen would have won without the strategy blunder.
Team boss Christian Horner even seems to be enjoying the tension and announces a balanced duel: “It will be like ebb and flow with the two of them.” Motorsport boss Helmut Marko also sounds almost as if he would welcome a duel on an equal footing with all the possible consequences: “No risk, no fun” he said laughing to Baku.
Whether Horner and Marko can hold out when there are literally crashes between the drivers on the track is not only the big question in front of Miami.