"They were going quicker than needed": Max Verstappen-Sergio Perez battle would have left Red Bull 'nervous' and 'annoyed'

Peter Windsor feels Red Bull would have been left nervous and annoyed during the Max Verstappen vs Sergio Perez battle in Jeddah.

Max Verstappen started the race in Jeddah in P15 and worked his way through the field to P2 by halfway distance through the race. Once he reached P2, he had a gap of 5 seconds to his teammate Sergio Perez in front of him. The two drivers attacked the race, trading the fastest laps one lap after another, and it wasn't until the last few laps of the race that Max Verstappen relented.

F1 pundit Peter Windsor felt that the situation would have left Red Bull both nervous about the car and annoyed at the proceedings. On a livestream on his YouTube channel, Windsor said:

“If I had been on the pit wall, I would have been very nervous today – and actually quite annoyed – that the two drivers were pushing one another as hard as they were, because they were going quicker than they needed to go. The gap they had over Alonso, once they got it to 10 seconds they could have backed off. But they didn’t."

He added:

“They just continued to take time out of one another and every time Max did a really good job on a lap Sergio responded, and then Sergio backed away to save the tyres and then Max put in another fastest lap."

"So it’s not what you want when you’ve got an easy one-two and you’re way ahead of the third-placed guy, in this case Fernando Alonso, but the matter resolved itself – kind of – when Max reported that he felt some vibrations.

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Tension between Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen?

Much has been said about the possible tension between Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen after the race in Jeddah. Perez was visibly surprised that Verstappen secured the fastest lap on the last lap of the race and had mentioned how there needs to be a review in terms of communication during the race.

Max Verstappen, too, had shared a call to improve the reliability of the car as his weekend was compromised due to an issue during qualifying. The two drivers are separated by one point in the championship with Max leading the standings. With Red Bull enjoying a considerable performance advantage, we might be looking at a season where Perez and Verstappen fight it out for the F1 title.