All was not well between the Red Bull teammates, Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, post the Sao Paulo Grand Prix. The Mexican fighting for second in the drivers’ championship was not given preference over Verstappen, who had already been crowned world champion. Following this denial of help by Max, Checo did not have very many nice things to say about his teammate. However, Max’s other teammate for 2023 has a contrasting opinion on the Dutchman.

Jeffrey Rietveld, who sim races alongside Verstappen for Team Redline racing, was on the brink of winning the virtual 24 hours of Le Mans, but a shortcoming from Verstappen led to the team’s loss. Rietveld had handed over his car to Max with a big lead. However, a server problem from the 2x F1 world champion’s end meant their dreams of winning came tumbling down. However, Rietveld still only has praise for Verstappen.

“The moment he gets into the car during a race, you just know he has it under control. He is also into serious hard work and analyzing data to see how we can improve everything even further. On the one hand, Max is a very good sim racer, on the other hand he is someone with a lot of experience and a great sense of what a car needs.”, said Rietveld as quoted by nl.motorsport.com.

Shedding light on what the pressure is like to team up with someone like Verstappen, he said, ” You just have to trust your own abilities. You know what you can do and if you train in a good way, it will work itself out. Of course, you have to be able to perform under pressure, but I often excel under pressure.”

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Contrastingly, things have not worked out very well for Sergio Perez who was constantly out-qualified by Verstappen. To add to that, the ‘rift’ post Brazilian GP adds another dent in the partnership.

Red Bull missed out on a 1-2 finish in the 2022 championship

In 2020, Sergio Perez thought his time to bid goodbye to F1 had come. He was recruited by Red Bull to replace a struggling Alex Albon. From then on, he has been a perfect partner to Max Verstappen. The Raging Bull utilized the Mexican minister of defense very smartly in 2021. Case in point, Turkey and Abu Dhabi, 2021. This eventually led to Max Verstappen being crowned the world champion.

However, when the tables turned in Brazil, 2022 and it was a no go from Max Verstappen, who harshly refused to give up his spot to let Checo have an advantage over Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. An unkind back-forth that began on the radio continued till post-race interviews.

The team played a great role to pacify the situation ‘internally’. And the team put up a united front in Abu Dhabi. However, the damage had already been done with Checo finishing 3rd in the championship at the conclusion of the 2022 season.

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All seems well in the Milton Keynes-based team for now. But has Checo forgotten the loss of the second spot in the championship? What are your predictions for the partnership lining in the defending champions in 2022?