It was a tough weekend for the Red Bull driver, Sergio Perez, at the Spanish Grand Prix. He qualified in P5 ahead of the 7-time world champion and Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton for the race.
But during the race, with a signature ‘tire whisperer’ ways, he made his way through the pack. After Max went off in Turn 4, Perez overtook him and battled with Russell. After the first round of pit stops, he once again found himself behind Russell and Verstappen for the battle for P2.
Perez – bro.
I dont know what to say. pic.twitter.com/V1B6mG2DY5— V F1 (@swiftsambi) May 24, 2022
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The Mexican driver went on to the radio to ask the world champion to move over and let him race with the Mercedes driver. But the team overlooked his request, and he stayed behind the pair. On the radio with his race engineer, we can clearly hear Sergio asking Max to move over.
Sergio Perez left dissatisfied by the team’s choice to not let him past Max Verstappen
Sergio Perez was setting the timings alight after switching to medium tires in the first half of the race. After he quickly got up to his teammate, he asked the team to move him over. It made sense for him to ask Verstappen to let him by as the world champion was having problems with his DRS.
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Checo said to his engineer, “Get Max out of the way so I can overtake quickly.” To this, his race engineer, Hugh Bird, replied,” Copy Checo.” But later on, Bird instructed Checo,” So build the temperature margin for now. Brakes are a bit on the warm side. Let’s wait at 2 seconds now, we’re in a different race to them.”
” Why don’t you let me by? I have fresher tires. I can get by quickly,” asked Perez to his race engineer. “Build the margin on the tire temps, build the margin on the brakes. We’ll get our chance,” replied Bird. To this, Checo concluded,” We will compromise our race, mate.”
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This looks like the Mexican driver was denied the chance to race his teammate by Red Bull. It is unclear whether he would have been able to get past both Verstappen and Russell had he been allowed to get past.