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Windsor on Red Bull choice: 'He was 20 per cent faster than Verstappen'
- Cas van de Kleut
Throughout the season, speculation has surrounded a possible dismissal of Sergio Perez at Red Bull Racing. Carlos Sainz was mentioned early in the season as one of the possible replacements. In the end, the Spaniard went to Williams and Liam Lawson replaced Perez. Windsor thinks Max Verstappen is one of the reasons Red Bull did not go for Sainz in the end, as he said during a livestream on his YouTube channel.
In the past, Verstappen did beat all his teammates. For instance, he beat Daniel Ricciardo in his third season at Red Bull Racing. After this, Pierre Gasly, Alexander Albon and Sergio Perez also failed to beat the Dutchman. Carlos Sainz, however, was a bit closer to Verstappen in their first year at Toro Rosso.
Windsor said of the comparison between teammates: "It is equal. And that's why teammate comparisons are so important. That's why Fernando Alonso was not very keen to keep Jano Trulli in the car.Not because he was beating Fernando, but he was uncomfortably close."
Sainz not going to Red Bull because of Verstappen?
The analyst continued, "And I wondered over the winter, in terms of Red Bull not taking, doing the obvious thing and signing Carlos Sainz to replace Sergio Perez, whether that all goes back to the year that Max and Carlos had at Toro Rosso. Because Carlos was actually occasionally, 20% of the time quicker than Max in qualifying. And he was right there when he wasn't quicker than Max. He was in a tenth or two. And he was uncomfortably near Max."
"Maybe they just didn't get on and they fell out over that for some reason. And maybe it was a setup or something that Carlos didn't tell Max about or something. Who knows what might have happened. But I think it goes back to that Toro Rosso period. Max saying to Red Bull, 'I don't want Carlos in the other car,' I think that's obviously what happened," Windsor concluded.
This article was written in collaboration with Norberto Mujica.
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