F1 News
Windsor questions Perez and Verstappen: 'Kept egging each other on'
- GPblog.com
According to Peter Windsor, it was striking how Red Bull Racing's Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen were putting the pressure on each other during the Saudi Arabia GP. According to the F1 expert, it was unnecessary for the dominant team.
Indeed, Red Bull was relatively soon on a one-two in the race. Verstappen started from P15 and drove forward in a controlled manner. The first virtual Safety Car ensured he was back in contention for a possible podium from P4 at the restart. When Verstappen was five seconds behind Perez on P2, the two drivers gave everything and easily drove away from number three Fernando Alonso.
An unnecessary fight between Verstappen and Perez?
According to Windsor, this was a remarkable moment. The two Red Bull drivers seemed to pressure each other and ask too much of the car. Windsor says in an afterthought on YouTube: " When they got the gap to ten seconds, they could have just backed off. But they didn't, they just continued to take time out of one another. Every time Verstappen did a really good job on a lap, Sergio responded."
The Briton was reminded of Red Bull's situation at the 2022 Brazil race. Back then, Verstappen ignored team orders to let Perez ahead. Windsor would not want to be in the race engineers' shoes: "It is not what you want when you have an easy one-two, way ahead of the third place guy, in this case, Fernando Alonso. [...] If I had been on the pit wall, I would have been very nervous today, and actually quite annoyed that the two drivers were pushing one another as hard as they were."