21 March 2023 , 21:00
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Sergio Perez declared his desire to get the better of his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen this season – before hastily deleting the social media post.
The Mexican won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from pole position with Verstappen in second. The Dutchman's task in Jeddah was made much more difficult my a mechanical problem when ended his qualifying abruptly and forced him to start 15th on the grid.
Verstappen wasted little time in cutting through the field until only Perez was ahead of him. But the Mexican was able to admirably keep his team-mate at arm's length in the second half of the race to take the chequered flag and to move to just one point behind in the championship.
He posted on social media afterwards: "It was tougher than I thought, but in the end I'm happy to get my fifth victory in F1. Very happy with the result of the team. We are going to keep pushing very hard. I want to be champion."
But it wasn't long before that declaration had disappeared from his account. Another tweet followed with a similar message – but missing that last line which was seen as a direct statement to Verstappen that he plans to go all out to beat him this year.
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Despite holding onto his championship lead by securing the fastest lap of the race, Verstappen was irritable as he faced the media after the race. He made it clear he was not happy with his team over the reliability problem which hampered his chances in Jeddah.
He said: "It's not only about the pace of the car, we need to make sure we are reliable without any issues. My first weekend was not very clean because of just the big balance shift from testing to the race weekend, some other things which were going on in the background.
"Now again, after three positive practice sessions, I have an issue in qualifying. Of course, I recovered to second which is good. In general the whole feeling in the team, everyone is happy – but personally I'm not happy because I'm not here to be second.
Sergio Perez won the Saudi GP from pole position (AFP via Getty Images)"Especially when you are working very hard back at the factory, to make sure you arrive here in a good state, and making sure everything is spot on. Then you have to do the recovery race.
"I don't mind doing it, but when you are fighting for a championship, when it looks like it's just between two cars, you have to make sure those two cars are reliable. We have to do better, absolutely. Just to have a cleaner weekend, I think that would be nice."