Sergio Perez Addresses Friction Rumours Within Red Bull Team
Sergio Perez has addressed the tensions within the Red Bull team ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.
It has been reported that there has been ongoing friction within the Austrian team for some time, which came to a height again after the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Perez started the race in pole position and raced fantastically to take the top spot of the podium with quite a lead. His teammate Max Verstappen drove from fifteenth to second place, however, refused to follow team orders at the end of the race and took the fastest lap point away from the Mexican driver.
You could cut the tension with a knife in the cool down room directly after the race when Perez realised he had been told not to push and Verstappen had pushed on the last lap anyway to take that point.
This took fans back to the 2022 Brazilian Grand Prix where the two-time champion refused to follow team orders to let Perez back through before the end of the race in order to help him in his race against Charles Leclerc for second place in the championship.
Rumours began to float around that this was due to Perez purposefully crashing during the Monaco Grand Prix qualifying session in order to qualify ahead of Verstappen. However, this has not been proven.
Speaking ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, Perez attempted to squash any rumours of friction within the team. He explained to the press:
"Things are great. I think we spoke about it and we are all in the same line, we obviously learn from that.
"At the time I thought I was not given the right information, but now looking back at it, it was all very well played by the team.
"I think it was a bit of a miscommunication between my engineer and myself. I don't think there was anything more to it, I think the team did a good job to let us race, and I think that was good.
"I had a word with Christian [Horner] after the race, and it was all clear. It's nothing big. Obviously you guys like to create some stories when we're not racing, but it's all good in the team."