The waves after the incident in Saudi Arabia are still not smoothed out at the Red Bull Formula 1 racing team. World champion Max Verstappen hinted at this in the run-up to the Australian Grand Prix when he publicly contradicted Sergio Pérez’s portrayal.
Did Verstappen get the green light on the last lap in Jeddah to go full throttle and get the extra point for the fastest lap? Or was the Dutchman told by the team not to do exactly that?
Sergio Pérez said after the race that he himself was instructed to take care of the material. His engineer also assured him on the radio that Verstappen also received this instruction. The Mexican’s anger was all the greater later when he found out that the Dutchman was resisting the supposed order.
In Melbourne, Pérez tried to de-escalate the situation a bit. He spoke of “miscommunication between me and my engineer”. But there wasn’t much more, the Mexican wanted to defuse the situation. “I think the team did a good job because they allowed us to race against each other. […] I have afterwards with Christian [Horner] spoken and everything was clear. It’s not a big deal.”
Max Verstappen, however, judged it completely differently. When the Dutchman was asked about Checo’s statements, he said dryly: “There was no miscommunication.” Such a situation already existed at the first race in Bahrain. “But it was the other way around,” the world champion indicated that his team-mate didn’t stick to the specifications at the time. So was Jeddah a return carriage for Verstappen after all?
“If you look at the first two races, it wasn’t one [Misskommunikation, Anm. d. Red.]Verstappen, who said he received no further explanation from the team after the race in Bahrain.
The championship leader then tried to change the subject. Instead of going into the obvious dispute with Pérez, he only said: “The positive thing is that our car is very competitive. That’s what we need if we want to fight for championships.”
It now seems certain that this fight will also be fought within the team with the toughest bandages.