For the first of three US races, Red Bull is giving the Formula 1 cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez a special paint job – fans were allowed to submit their suggestions.
The new and unique outfit will not make the RB 19 any faster, but even so, at the Miami Grand Prix, practically everything boils down to another stable duel for victory – which is explosive enough.
Before the fifth race of the season, Verstappen leads Pérez by six points. Both have won two Grand Prix so far, most recently in Azerbaijan Pérez won.
“Hopefully we can continue our good form from Baku,” said the 33-year-old, who has now become a street circuit expert. He has already won in Baku in 2021, in Monaco in 2022, in Singapore in 2022 and this year in Jeddah.
Pérez does not leave any doubts about his goal of wanting to prevent the 25-year-old two-time champion Verstappen from being crowned again this year in order to become world champion himself for the first time. And he is convinced that he can do it. “I think with three kids at home I wouldn’t travel the world if I didn’t believe I could be world champion,” he said recently.
It remains to be seen to what extent the tense duel in a team can be a disadvantage for one team or, in the worst case, for Red Bull for both. “If you look closely, you can see that the teammates don’t get along well. And if a team has two drivers who don’t harmonize with each other, then that’s a big disadvantage for the team in the end,” wrote the former Formula 1 driver Pilot Ralf Schumacher (47) in his column for Sky.