Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez’s feud is the battle F1 needs

It’s well known they don’t get along but the ongoing tensions between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez could well salvage the current season.

JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – MARCH 19: Third placed Fernando Alonso of Spain and Aston Martin F1 Team celebrates on the podium, he was later given a penalty and demoted to 4th place, during the F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah Corniche Circuit on March 19, 2023 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. (Photo by Peter Fox/Getty Images)

There is a bittersweetness to being part of a winning team when regularly eclipsed by a fellow team-mate. It is a grudge Sergio Perez has needed to bear throughout Red Bull’s recent pomp, such has been the unerring supremacy of Max Verstappen, and so there were few celebrations withheld after the Mexican was afforded a rare glimmer of the limelight and took victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Christian Horner, the Red Bull principal, hailed Perez’s drive as his best under the team, and the winner was soon engulfed by an ecstatic pit crew. Keen observers will have noted one figure lurking among them for whom the joy didn’t appear to be shared. Jos Verstappen, Max’s father, stared absently into the distance behind Perez as if observing an arch rival rather than a team-mate. Perhaps, he wasn’t wrong.

The Formula One paddock is a place of pretences and feigned friendships, a family that gathers every fortnight or so and bickers amicably enough at lunch before sneering on the journey home. The mask at Red Bull slipped long ago and was made plain in Sao Paulo last year when Verstappen, whose title had already been sealed, repeatedly refused to allow Perez past him and claim valuable points in the race to be runner-up.

“It shows who he really is,” said Perez, who played such a pivotal supporting role in Verstappen’s controversial win in Abu Dhabi in 2021 when he fought and held up Lewis Hamilton. “It’s always important to work as a team and obviously if I see that I don’t receive support when I need it, I won’t give it either.”

Race winner Sergio Perez of Mexico and Oracle Red Bull Racing and Third placed George Russell

The spat was smoothed over, although not before Verstappen’s mother made - and deleted - an ugly reference to Perez’s private life on social media, and peace is always paper-thin at the elite level of this claustrophobic sport.

Amid Red Bull’s superiority over their competitors, as evidenced by the astonishing ease with which Verstappen surged through the field, any rift is likely to be strained by what already feels certain to be a two-horse race.

“If that’s the case, then it will be fantastic news for the team,” Perez said of a direct battle with Verstappen. “That means we are pretty far ahead and it comes down to us.”

Verstappen was less diplomatic. “I am not here to be second, so I am not happy,” he said before bemoaning the driveshaft issue that left him to start Sunday’s race from 15th. “I am fighting for a championship and, even if it is just between two cars, we have to make sure the cars are reliable.”

Perez showed applaudable grit and concentration to ensure Verstappen never had a chance to attack under the floodlights in Jeddah. That didn’t prevent the first seeds of discontent and conspiracy blossoming towards the end of the race. “I asked two laps from the end, where [the team] told me to keep a certain pace,” he said. “They told me I had the fastest lap, so I thought the communication was the same to Max or something. We need to review [it].”

Verstappen had other ideas and after one of his engineers insisted “we’re not concerned about [the fastest lap] at the moment”, the 25-year-old snapped back: “Yeah, but I am.” Having eased off amid more angst over his car’s driveshaft, Verstappen then threw everything into a terrific final lap to snatch the bonus point that kept him ahead of Perez in the drivers’ standings, with 44 points to the latter’s 43. “It’s a point on the line,” Verstappen said.

Race winner Sergio Perez of Mexico and Oracle Red Bull Racing and Second placed Max Verstappen

It was a prelude to the tension that will swell and inevitably erupt in spurts over the course of a season in which there are currently no other challengers. “When we were fast we weren’t that fast - that [Red Bull] is the fastest car I have seen,” said Lewis Hamilton, who salvaged a fifth-place finish from his misfiring Mercedes.

It leaves Perez the only driver capable of denying Verstappen a third world title in succession and so they are partners in name only. He was brought to Red Bull to play second fiddle to Verstappen’s tune. Now he has the chance to become the protagonist rather than a supporting act. It will require immense skill and even more fortune, but he rose to that task in Jeddah at least, and long may it continue for the sake of a F1 season in stark danger of becoming a formality.

F1 FARCE: FIA TO CLARIFY RULES THAT CAUSED ALONSO MESS

The FIA said on Monday it intends to “address” the problems at last weekend’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix where Fernando Alonso was handed a punishment at the end of the race that was later overturned.

The Spaniard crossed the line third in his Aston Martin on Sunday but was then handed a 10-second punishment that dropped him to fourth before a late-night appeal reinstated him.

Formula One posted a message from a spokesperson for the FIA, the governing body of world motorsports, who said the stewards had been caught out by “conflicting precedents” on what constituted “working on the car” serving a penalty in the pits.

The message said the topic would be addressed at an FIA committee meeting on March 23 and promised “a clarification will be issued ahead of the … Australian Grand Prix” which is on April 2 in Melbourne.

Alonso was first punished for not starting from the right spot on he grid. He tried to serve his five-second penalty at the start of a pit stop, but a mechanic allowed a jack to touch the car.

Alonso was initially stripped of his podium finish. (Photo by Lars Baron/Getty Images)

After the race finished and Alonso had stood on the podium and given interviews, the stewards, who are nominated by the FIA, finally decided that the team had been working on Alonso’s car during the penalty.

They hit the Spaniard with a 10-second penalty, dropping him to fourth behind George Russell.

Aston Martin appealed and produced videos showing that other competitors had done the same in the past without being sanctioned.

The decision “was the result of new evidence regarding the definition of ‘working on the car’, for which there were conflicting precedents, and this has been exposed by this specific circumstance,” said the FIA spokesperson.

Originally published as Red Bull duo Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez’s feud is the battle F1 needs