Red Bull boss clarifies his radio comments to Sergio Perez after the Baku F1 race

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained the words he shared with Max Vertstappen about Sergio Perez winning the race 'by luck' of the safety car. He explained that he actually referred to Checo having a lucky incident, and not intending that he won by pure luck.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix saw Perez on the top of the podiuum, while his teammate tried hard to catch up to him, he ultimately couldn't. After the race, however, Horner told Vertsappen that Checo 'got lucky with the safety car.' It was speculated that he doubted the Mexican's ability to win against his teammate, but he explained himself on the Pardon My Take podcast.

"The comment was not in reference to him [Checo] having won by luck, but that he had a lucky scenario that he later converted [in his favor] and boy did he have a competitive race."

Horner further reminded about an incident from the 2022 season, when Sergio Perez was close to winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix after starting on pole, however, a safety car benefitted Verstappen and he won the race instead. He mentioned that incidents like this level up overtime, and hence it happened to the double world champion in Baku.

"If you look back at Jeddah last year, he [Checo] was in the lead, he pitted and the Safety Car benefited Max. [Checo] had bad luck that day and Max had good luck. It tends to level out over the course of a season."

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Horner to not change the way he speaks after Sergio Perez-Max Vertsappen issue in Baku

This is not the first time that something said by a Formula 1 team principal has been taken in a wrong way by the fans. However, as Christian Horner stated, he would not change the way he speaks to both Sergio Perez and Verstappen, because if he does, he would become a social media robot. Horner said:

"If you respond to what people write on social media or whatever, you end up being a robot. You have to respond to what you're seeing, what you're feeling and what you think the pilots are feeling."

He added that it doesn't bother him what people think about his messages to the drivers, because, according to him, it is most important for the drivers and the rest of the team to understand.

Sergio Perez is currently on P2 in the standings, not very far from Verstappen. It is hard for any other team to challenge Red Bull for a victory, so it is obvious that the two would perhaps battle each other for the champioship this season.