After Brutal Sergio Perez Fiasco, Max Verstappen’s Confidante Comes to His Rescue: “He’s a Family Man”

Ever since his arrival at Red Bull, Sergio Perez has been subservient to Max Verstappen. He gladly played second fiddle to help his teammate win his maiden F1 championship in 2021. Even in 2022, he played the ultimate team game whenever Red Bull needed him to. However, when it came to returning the favor in Brazil, Max Verstappen backed out. While he received backlash from all corners, an old friend has come to his rescue.

Perez and Charles Leclerc were engaged in the battle to finish 2nd in the drivers’ standings while the championship was long decided. As the penultimate of the season at Interlagos proceeded towards the final few laps, Red Bull realized Perez could not have finished ahead of Leclerc. Going into the damage control mode, they asked Max Verstappen to pass his teammate in P6, then overtake Fernando Alonso and then fight Leclerc.

Red Bull strategists also told Max to give the place back to Sergio if he could not overtake Alonso. Not only did Max fail to overtake the Spaniard, but he also refused to give the place back to his teammate. When asked for the reason for defying the team orders, Verstappen lashed out at his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase on the team radio. The incident soured the relations between the Red Bull duo but his virtual racing team’s General Manager feels Max shares an excellent relationship with his teammates from sim racing.

In a recent interview with Tom McCluskey, Atze Kerkhof said, “What I think what he’s looking mostly forward is to share a performance with his team. With his teammates, with all the drivers. I think it’s something in his character like, he’s a family man and he sees his teammates as family. So, he’s really good to them, he’s very open to them.”

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Max’s actions in Brazil were justified by the former two-time F1 champion, Mika Hakkinen. The 2009 world champion Jenson Button took a line similar to Hakkinen’s as well.

Jenson Button compared Max’s insubordination to Sebastian Vettel’s infamous Multi-21 incident

Multi-21 is a term used to refer to an infamous incident from 2013 when Sebastian Vettel defied team orders to overtake his Red Bull teammate, Mark Webber. Multi-21 meant car number 2 (Webber) will stay ahead of car number 1 (Vettel) with the same engine setting.

Speaking during Sky Sports’ broadcast after the Sao Paulo GP, Jenson Button said, “Max is the one winning races. So, if Checo is upset about it, it’s a problem for Checo.”

Sky’s presenter Simon Lazenby asked Jenson, “So you’re in the Mika Hakkinen camp, are you? Because he was saying that as well, ‘it’s just a strong statement, and that’s it. This is my team.”

Button replied, “I mean Seb [Vettel] did exactly the same. Multi-21 was exactly the same. And we think Seb is such a sweet guy.”

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Red Bull, a couple of days after the incident, clarified that both Checo and Max had put the incident behind them. However, as the season concluded, the Mexican driver missed out on the runner-up position in the standings. Whether the duo has put its differences behind them, we’ll only know when the next season kicks off.