Red Bull Hero Sergio Perez Had His Engineer Panting After a Prank, Before He Got Him Back With a Sharp Rebuttal in 2011

Sergio Perez is all everyone can talk about since the Singapore Grand Prix. The Mexican driver for Red Bull finished in P1 while his teammate and reigning champion, Max Verstappen, finished in P7. Singapore was Sergio’s second win of the second, his first one came at Monaco.

Checo made his debut in F1 in 2011 with Sauber. Even back then, the Mexican was as mischievous as we see him be with Max for their funny challenges on YouTube and Instagram.

A particular incident takes us back to Japan when Checo played a cheeky prank on his engineers in the middle of a race. The engineers also got back to him, eventually. It was a friendly little tug of war that fans don’t usually get to see much.

In the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix, after starting 17th on the grid, Perez had brought himself to a significant point position by the final lap. This is when he took to his team radio and spooked his engineer.

Sergio Perez on his radio, said, “I lost power. I lost power. No power. No power. No power.”

His engineer, encouraging, responded by saying, “Go to the finish line, keep pushing. Go to the line, Keep pushing. Go to the line.”

To this, Checo cheekily said, “Haha, I was joking,” as he finished P8.

And so his engineer instantly tried to get back to him as he pulls an Uno reverse on the Mexican. He said, in a serious tone, “Actually, I made a mistake, Kamui is fourth. Kamui is P4.”

When in reality, Kamui Kobayashi, Checo’s teammate, finished in p13.

As Perez tenses up, he asked, “Fourth? Position Four? Why?”

The engineer now gives it away, as he said, “So, I got you as well, Checo, okay? You got it back, now.”

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Perez got a big win for the second time this Season 2022, beating The Dutch Lion, who already has one hand on the championship.

Sergio Perez gets emotional looking back at the “best performance” of his career

In the end, a race that was supposed to be about Max Verstappen ended up becoming one of the best wins for his teammate.

“It was certainly, I think, my best,” said Perez after the GP. “My best performance. I controlled the race.”

“This win is really special for me, because I’ve had a bit of a rough patch in the last few races. And yeah, it’s just nice to get that win and yeah, it’s not a reminder to anyone of how good I am. But it’s just always good to be able to put together this sort of performances.”

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After the race, Perez received a 5-second penalty for failing to stay within 10 car lengths of the safety car during the race. But since he was quite ahead of Charles Leclerc, he got to keep his first place trophy.