RACE REPORT
Red Bull’s mind games
Another race, another win for Max, but is paranoia creeping into the team battle? Mark Hughes reports from Albert Park
Australian GP
Three red flags, four safety cars and a bizarre ending caused by a hole in the sporting regulations created lots of distraction on a sunny race day in Albert Park. But they didn’t really alter much. The story of the weekend as a component of this championship was that Max Verstappen had a near-perfect weekend and his team-mate Sergio Pérez had something of a nightmare. ‘Checo’ came into the weekend only one point behind and left it trailing by 15.
As outlined here last month, the dynamics at Red Bull are different this year – at least at this stage of the season – as it’s clear that Pérez is Verstappen’s only feasible challenger for a third consecutive world title, such is the advantage of the RB19. Pérez was setting out his stall early in the Melbourne weekend, saying on Thursday: “When I first came to the team things were very different. Basically, they were just going racing with two cars because they had to, you know. I can say now that I really feel part of the team, really feel I have my place and am well respected. I think that’s something good to have as a driver and I really believe I have the full support of the team as much as Max does and that I will have every single opportunity to win the championship as much as Max does.”
Sergio Pérez endured braking issues during practice, and called on ‘the team’ to sort it out
Reliability on each of their cars is going to be disproportionately important regardless of whether Verstappen’s habitual performance advantage over Pérez is maintained. Two DNFs from Verstappen, and it would take seven races of him beating Pérez into second to recover. Hence why Verstappen had been so vocal in his dissatisfaction in Jeddah, where a driveshaft failure in qualifying had left him starting 14 places behind his team-mate and was ultimately the reason he finished second to him there. Pérez, under no illusions about how Verstappen is the main focus of the team but feeling this is the biggest opportunity of his long career, clearly feels that it’s incumbent upon Red Bull to give him an equal shot this year. Putting it out there that he had faith in the team to do that put the spotlight on them.