Sergio Pérez finished the sixth race of the 2022 Formula 1 season in second position to complete Red Bull’s double in the Spanish Grand Prix, and after crossing the finish line, the Mexican said on the radio that he wanted to talk to his team after not let him fight for victory.
Checo was leading the race towards the end when he was told not to hold off his team-mate, Max Verstappen, who was running an alternative tire strategy, using fresher tires in the closing laps.
However, not having been given a free hand earlier to attempt to overtake the Dutchman to attack George Russell when he had an advantage on his compounds, he made it clear that he felt the order was “unfair”.
During a subsequent switch to the softs, on which he finished more than 13 seconds behind Verstappen, Pérez told his bosses over the radio after the double that, although he was happy with the result, he wanted explanations about what had happened.
“I’m happy for the team, but we have to talk later,” the Mexican told Red Bull by internal communication.
During post-race interviews, he was pressed on the matter, but was diplomatic about how a possible victory had eluded him: “I think it was close, but in the end it’s a great result for the team, I’m happy about it.”
When asked about the frustration he had expressed on the radio, the Mexican said: “We were on different strategies at the time. I let Max [Verstappen] through at first, and then I thought I could get through without losing. Crucial seconds for my strategy to work. In any case, it’s a great result for the whole.”
Red Bull CEO Christian Horner , on the other hand, believes that when his driver understands better how the event was going at the time with the different tyres, he will accept the decision made.
This is how the Briton explained it to Sky Sports F1 : “Our responsibility is to bring both cars home with as many points as we can, and of course what Checo couldn’t see at the time, which he can see perfectly now, is that I had such a long stint to do with the middle.”
“Max had such a tire advantage in our view that it didn’t make sense to take that risk with intermittent DRS (referring to Verstappen’s moving element activator problems), with temperatures going up and down,” he continued. “So it was the right thing to do.”
The Red Bull director also defended this decision by saying that the team was not based on the championship, but rather it was an issue related to the life of the tyres.
“I think we’ll talk about it, and he [Perez] will see the race unfold. He’ll understand that he had about 30 laps to do on the tyres, that at the end we needed to pit to make sure we covered Russell,” Horner said. .
“In the heat of the moment you can understand. If he wasn’t pushing for that kind of thing, he’s not doing his job,” said the Milton Keynes team’s chief executive.
