After the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Red Bull teammates Sergio Pérez and Max Verstappen should have discussed a perfect team result in the rest room before the podium celebration. Two races, two double wins, 87 out of a possible 88 points at the start of the year.
Instead, Pérez, the race winner, asked how he missed setting the fastest lap of the race. On his final lap, Verstappen clocked a time two tenths of a second faster than Pérez’s personal best, snagging the bonus point and maintaining his lead in the Drivers’ Championship with 44 to Pérez’s 43 points.
“Did you set the fastest lap at the end?” asked Perez.
“On the last lap, yes,” replied Verstappen, seated in the chair reserved for Pérez as race winner.
Pérez paused, adjusted his hat. “You weren’t told to keep the pace?” His understanding was that they should come home at a steady pace in the final laps without jeopardizing the 1-2 finish as there were signs of potential mechanical issues in every car.
Verstappen responded that he had been told to aim for a lap time of 1:33.0s, adding: “But then I asked what the fastest lap was and I think it was a tenth faster than that , what we have done.”
The awkward move was followed by a surprisingly tense finish for a team that had no real rivals on the starting line-up. Verstappen moved up from 15th on the grid to second on lap 25 of 50. His pace prompted old rival Lewis Hamilton to say he had “never seen a car that fast”.
2-1 looked safe from that point, so why was the closing stages dominated by chatter from Verstappen and Pérez over the radio about lap times?
Ultimately, it points to an underlying tension that defies any notion that F1 is a “team sport” and why even a single bonus point for fastest lap is something teammates fight over.
How the fight for the fastest lap played out on the radio
All F1 teams establish “Rules of Engagement” for their drivers, governing how they compete against each other on track. Some teams have stricter engagement rules than others, but the general rule is don’t clash. Drivers are constantly reminded that the team result takes priority.
In return, the drivers want the same opportunities as their teammates. In Saudi Arabia, Pérez was therefore disappointed that he had been told to control his pace to the checkered flag only for Verstappen to set the fastest lap. “I thought the communication with Max was the same,” Pérez said in the post-race press conference. “So that’s something we need to check because I certainly got other information and just ended up getting stuck.”
Verstappen initially received the same instructions as Pérez from his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase:
Verstappen: What is the fastest lap?
Lambiase: We’re not worrying about that at the moment, Max.
Verstappen: Yes, but I am.
[pause]
Lambiase: OK, it’s a (1m)32.1.
Listening to Pérez’s radio communications with the pit wall, he can be heard asking his race engineer Hugh Bird for the fastest lap time on lap 47 of 50:
Perez: What is the fastest lap?
Bird: You have the fastest lap, 32.1.
Pérez and Bird didn’t discuss fastest lap again before the checkered flag, leaving Bird’s message open to interpretation: We told Pérez that this was his own benchmark to beat, or that there was no reason to because he already did had the fastest lap start again?
Either way, Verstappen was two tenths quicker than second on the final lap to take away the bonus point – and keep his lead in the Championship. The message was broke to Pérez on the cool-down lap after crossing the finish line:
Perez: Did we set the fastest lap in the end?
Bird: You were overtaken on the last lap.
Perez: Bah. Great. Haha.
Bird: Enjoy the victory, that’s the number one job.
Perez: Yeah, let’s enjoy it folks.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said after the race it was “obvious” why Pérez asked for the fastest lap and suggested he was trying to improve on his own best time.
“He knew Max was going to try and Checo gave up after the first few corners,” said Horner. “He was already a tenth and a half down, and then you saw him out again.”
make teammates fight
The battle for the fastest laps at the end wasn’t the first time in the race that Pérez was concerned he was receiving different information than Verstappen was behind.
When Verstappen expressed concerns about his car’s driveshaft on lap 37, reporting that it sounded “a bit rough”, Red Bull began to consider whether his two cars should finish the race at the top. On lap 40, Verstappen was told “Target 33.0” for the first time, meaning his lap time should drop to 1:33.0s. When he set a time of 1:32.6 seconds, Lambiase reminded him of the instruction. But Verstappen kept his lap times in the 1:32.6s range, even dropping to 1:32.2s on lap 42. After another reminder, Lambiase’s tone tightened a bit: “Max, confirm target 33.0.” He received no verbal response and challenged Verstappen a fifth time on lap 44 to aim for 33.0 seconds.
Around that time, Pérez was told to aim for 32.6 seconds, seemingly in response to Verstappen’s pace. Pérez then asked his engineer, Bird, why he was told to go 33.0 seconds while Verstappen went faster, potentially eating away at his lead. It’s worth noting that between laps 40 and 47, Pérez never once dropped below a lap time of 1m32s.
Pérez’s concerns about the radio are “completely normal,” according to Horner. But he said as long as the pit wall (where the engineers, chief strategist and Horner sit) felt that Verstappen’s car’s reliability issue was under control, “it was a question of letting (the drivers) do with it.” He added added that the messages to Verstappen would have been “highlighted” if his reliability issue had become critical.
But there was never a thought of introducing team orders and telling riders not to race each other, although Pérez once said over the radio that they were “pushing for no reason”. Teams are always reluctant to intervene and issue rules of engagement over the air, especially when it comes to drivers fighting for victory. As long as it doesn’t jeopardize the team result, most will try to leave it to the drivers on track.
But that is not without great risk.
The problem with dominance
Having a car that is significantly faster than the rest of the field is a dream scenario for any F1 team. But that kind of dominance is not without its downsides.
Should Red Bull maintain this level of performance, the championship fight will likely come down to Verstappen and Pérez. It’s a situation that dominant teams have encountered in the past, the most recent example coming at Mercedes between 2014 and 2016 when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg fought for the title every year.
There, the internal rivalry and tensions created caused deep friction between the two drivers. They came together at the track to battle for the lead on several occasions, including twice in the 2016 season. A crash on the first lap in Spain forced both cars to retire (opening the door to Verstappen’s maiden F1 win), while they collided on the final lap in Austria as they battled for the lead.
Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the first lap of the 2016 Spanish GP, forcing both cars to retire. (Miquel Llop/NurPhoto via Getty)
While neither result jeopardized the Mercedes championship, it still jeopardized the team’s maximum result for being so far ahead. Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team boss, imposed the law on both drivers and even threatened to bench them. Long-standing internal tensions were eased in late 2016 when Rosberg announced his retirement immediately after winning his first championship. Wolff vowed never to let internal dynamics fall to such a low point again.
It’s only the second race so it’s impossible to say for sure how the Verstappen/Pérez dynamic would play out in a head-to-head battle for the championship. But the pair have clashed before, most notably in Brazil last year when Verstappen defied team orders to let Pérez pass and help him bid for second place in the championship despite his own title already being sewn. It shows how far some riders are willing to stay ahead of their own teammates.
Red Bull’s biggest problem this year could be their own dominance. Should there be a title fight between Verstappen and Pérez, management will need to civilize things and prevent anything from spilling over like it did in Brazil last year, a saga that has tarnished Red Bull’s image with F1 fans.
But without external competition to Verstappen and Pérez, fine margins like car reliability and fastest laps could be all the more important in deciding their title fight. When asked in a post-race press conference whether the two drivers would be each other’s main rivals, Verstappen didn’t flinch at the thought.
“Well, if that’s the case, it’s pretty easy, isn’t it? We are allowed to race, so the best finishes first.”
(Photo by Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)