Verstappen pit before Perez: 'Wont' go down well in Mexico'
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- Sam Godber
Sergio Perez was leading in no time in the Dutch Grand Prix, but almost as quickly, he lost the lead again. Max Verstappen was unleashed on the intermediates and thanks to a strongly timed pit stop he regained the lead. Was Verstappen favoured by Red Bull when returning on slicks? Peter Windsor doesn't dare make a judgement on it, but is sure it didn't make Perez happy.
Other Red Bull driver suddenly in the lead
Immediately after the start, it started raining so hard that the drivers had to pick up a set of intermediates. Verstappen and Fernando Alonso did so a lap later than men like Sergio Perez, Guanyu Zhou and Pierre Gasly. It gave Perez a lead of around 15 seconds over his teammate. Could it be a great afternoon for the Mexican then?
"Sergio was driving in the lead and had a decent lead over Max. So you think: maybe Sergio is going to win this Grand Prix, this is a serious lead. Given the conditions, this was actually better than pole," Windsor said on his YouTube channel. Perez did not hold out for long, however, as Verstappen was faster on the green-cheeked rubber by about a second and a half per lap and was rapidly closing in.
Trailing by more than three seconds, the reigning world champion went for the undercut by changing back to slicks. Perez went in for softs a lap later and rejoined the track behind Verstappen, ruling out a duel between the two teammates in treacherous track conditions. Windsor concludes: "Lucky for Red Bull."
Perez loses the lead
Race leader Perez - as it turned out after the two pitstops - was eventually assigned the lesser strategy. "That won't have gone down too well in Mexico. I'm sure Sergio was on the radio: 'Why did you give him that undercut?' And whether or not that was planned by Red Bull to get Max in the lead, that it just worked out that way or that Max drove a great outlap..."
The track was still not completely dry, and Windsor argues that it is therefore a risk to have the race leader make a pit stop. According to the analyst, what Red Bull's exact motivations were is not entirely clear to him.