The main topic of conversation following the Sao Paulo Grand Prix on Sunday surrounds Red Bull after Max Verstappen refused a team order on the final lap of the race.
Verstappen had been let through by Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez to attack the cars in front in the closing laps of the race, but was told over team radio to hand the place back if he couldn’t overtake Fernando Alonso for fifth.
Although he got close to the Spaniard, Verstappen didn’t move in front but also failed to pull aside and hand the position back to Perez
The situation was particularly controversial as Perez is currently battling Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for second in the Drivers’ Championship.
With just one round remaining, the duo are now tied on 290 points.
One rumour circulating is that Verstappen defied the team order as payback for Monaco, when Perez crashed on his final hot lap in Q3, denying Verstappen the chance to fight for pole position.
Perez would go on to win the race for Red Bull, his first of the 2022 campaign. According to information in Dutch media, Perez admitted to Red Bull that he had spun deliberately during the session.
“It is correct what Tom Coronel [Dutch racing driver and pundit] just said at ViaPlay,” tweeted journalist Erik Van Haren.
“Perez deliberately crashed in qualifying in Monaco and later admitted it to Helmut Marko and Christian Horner. Max Verstappen has not forgotten that.”
Speaking to Sky F1 after the session, Verstappen defended his decision to stay in front of Perez.
“We put everything on the table why. I gave my reasons. I’m not going to say why, but I think they understood. I already explained to them before, so it was not new to me, it was not new to them.”
When asked if it was a potential payback situation for Monaco: “You can decide that.”
Do you just read Reddit and pretend to have any news to publish?
This is a GMM aggregate site. For those who don’t know, GMM is a service that anyone can subscribe to. They promise a certain amount of F1 “news” articles 24/7/365 (which is hilarious given such a long off-season where literally nothing happens — news sites used to basically shut down during this time), and these articles can be copied and pasted verbatim to pretend news sites like this one. This site does not have actual journalists, and posts many of them, except the ones that show Hamilton in a negative light which are never, ever posted here. grandprix dot com is also now a GMM site (used to have legit FIA accredited journalists, not sure that is even a thing anymore), albeit a better one and they post all of the news, including the many stories this year that exposed Hamilton as the problem child liar that he really is.
TomB you are a mean-spirited c**t, rather like Trump, just for that irrelevant, dumb little remark in your last sentence. Ah well, today exposed the spotty little Dutch wanker as selfish, arrogant and unsporting. But we all knew that
I’m “mean-spirited” according to a person calling me a “c*nt” for laying out factual information (i.e., Hamilton lied several times to the FIA this year to stir up trouble, which this site NEVER reported even once even though GMM ran TONS of articles about these lies that went unpunished). Yeah, okay… Makes sense. And of course throwing in the name Trump for some reason, not sure why? Typical deranged commie I reckon.
Problem child liar lol….he lied about jewelry. Jewelry. This site doesnt report that kind of thing. You should stick to Drive to Survive like my girlfriend if youre so worried about jewelry. Or you just mad cos Merc already caught up despite RBs extra spending and poaching half Mercs staff? Looking like its gonna be more Mercedes dominance next year already. Max gonna cry like he does. Horner gonna cry like he does. We all knew it was coming.
Regarding “legit FIA accredited journalists”. None more trusted and respected than Joe Saward. Joe has not missed a single race since (I believe Portugal) 1988. Thirty four years.
You want F1 news without these aggregate services, Google Joe.
I suspect that it would be closer to the truth to guess that the reason Verstappen didn’t move over for Perez is that Perez was nowhere near him. In four seconds a Formula One car covers a lot of ground, so Verstappen would have had absolutely no sight of his teammate in his mirrors, and no clue where he was. To slow down enough to allow such a gap to close would mean that if there were other cars anywhere close to Perez they would come steaming by too, so Verstappen may have felt he was risking tumbling several places down the order.
Over the course of this season at each race weekend Perez has been either very fast, and probably on the podium, or very slow and has never got involved in the race at all. This weekend he has been very slow. Rarely has he, in either race, been pressuring the car ahead, as exemplified by the second safety car restart in the grand prix. Even coming up the hill towards the line, where he had to be expecting Russell to make his move at any moment, Perez just never got into position behind the two Mercedes and was way off the back of them by the first corner. Tactically, it was very poor. From there he was going backwards, and to lose four seconds off the back of Verstappen in such a short distance was also pretty bad. Were he just behind Verstappen, and all it required was a momentary lift to permit him to pass, maybe his teammate would have been more amenable, but it’s understandable why Verstappen wouldn’t wish to park it by the side for a few seconds to wait for him to catch up.
Obviously, I have no idea what has been said in the Red Bull garage, but I find it hard to believe that even if Perez had done such a thing, a bit of a stretch to accept in itself, that he would actually walk into the pit lane and tell everyone on the team all about it. When drivers have been found guilty of similar offences in the past it has been whilst still protesting their innocence, rather than as a result of them owning up to it.
Perez was a solid 4 seconds behind Max, probably would have resulted in dangerously slow driving if he had attempted to let him go by. If I were Perez, I would feel embarrassed for even being in the position he was in today. There is NO reason why Lecuck should even be remotely close to him in points (and hearing him begging for team orders was utterly pathetic). Not one reason. Red Bull made a mistake by retaining this clown for another two years (!!!???) with so many better drivers available. WTF were they thinking?
Yeah keep crying. If RB got both championships this year is only because they had 2 strong drivers working together. Something they haven’t had in years.
Sergio doesnt belong in that car. Hes lucky to have a seat at all with his less than mediocre record. And Max is at the very back of the grid when it comes to team work. Just behind Alonso. I think theyre both punks. But thats just RB, isnt it?
Energy drink team will always be this way under Horner spice and Old spice.