Implacant conflict between Verstappen and Checo Perez: The threat from the Red Bull garage itself

After the first 3 races of F1 2023, two riders of the Red Bull team, Max Verstappen and Checo Perez are dominating the rankings with two leading positions.

Verstappen, who won the F1 championship in 2021 and 2022, is aiming to win the championship after winning 2 races, the same second time, to temporarily lead with 69 points. While the Mexican racer – Checo Perez, with 1 first return, 1 second time and once about 54 points, more than the third racer fernando Alonso 9 points.

However, there is no peaceful and happy atmosphere in the Red Bull team, but on the contrary, good results are sparking internal fate and a series of rumors about conflicts in the team.

Michael Bleekemolen, a former Dutch driver, has participated in formula 1 in the 1977 and 1978 seasons, revealed who was responsible for the internal fighting between Red Bull riders.

“The media is a bit blamed for this,” Bleekemolen shared on the GP Fans. “The sayings are cut and paired in different ways. They suddenly become feasts of hate each other.”

Looking deeper about the past, there are many conflicts that have existed between the two racers Max Verstappen and Checo Perez:

1. Checo Perez “serving” Max Verstappen season 2021

Most teams do not want to mention whether they have “No. 1 riders” or “racer No. 2”, but the situation in Red Bull is very clear: Verstappen is a pampered pet and Perez is the support driver.

In the 2021 season, Perez’s first season with Red Bull, he struggled in adapting to the new car but successfully completed his mission, especially in the last race of the season.

In the race of Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Perez succeeded in “holding back” the second driver Lewis Hamilton, to create conditions for Verstappen to the first stage and win the final championship for the first time.

The Red Bull team, Christian Horner called “teamwork” a “sophistry” and this creates more hostility rather than friendship: “There is definitely no friends here, because another guy in another car is simply a rival opponent. He is just a racer with the same car. So he can build or destroy your career.”

2. Conflict in the 2022 season

It happened at the Spanish Grand Prix, when Perez asked his racing team to let him surpass Verstappen, who was ranked 3rd to fight with George Russell for the second position. Perez, in the car faster at that time, believed it would be easy to surpass Russell, but Verstappen did not take steps.

Later in the race, Perez ran before Verstappen, but the Red Bull team asked Checo to overcome his teammates. At that time, Checo said “unfair” on the team’s radio and after the race he also said: “I am happy for the team, but we need to talk later.”

That is just the beginning of the increasing conflict.

3. Verstappen refused to help Perez

Later in the last 2 stages of the 2022 season, had the opportunity for Verstappen to repay what he received from Perez season 2021, Max refused.
Verstappen will almost certainly own the championship when entering the Brazil and Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and Red Bull will also be the winning racing team since 2013, but the second position is still the race between Perez and Charles Leclerc of the Ferrari team.

In the final round in Brazil, the order of Verstappen and Perez are P6 and P7 respectively. The change of position can help Perez pursue 2nd place in the end but when the team asks Verstappen to pass Perez, Max disagrees.

At the Abu Dhabi, Perez can still finish the second end if ranked on Leclerc. However, Verstappen led the race, Perez only came to the third after Leclerc because Max did not slow down to hold Ferrari’s limbs as Perez did with Hamilton earlier.