30 March 2023 , 12:30
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Max Verstappen rubbished the theory offered by Sergio Perez that the confusion over team orders at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was caused by a "miscommunication".
Perez won the race a few seconds up the road from Red Bull team-mate Verstappen, who had moved up to second place from 15th on the grid. On the surface, it looked simple for them with their RB19 cars in a league of their own in terms of car performance.
But conversations over the radio told a slightly different story. Wary that Verstappen was only a few seconds behind, Perez was complaining over the radio about the lap time he was being told to target – worried that his team-mate was catching.
And the Mexican was told that he had the fastest lap – causing him to believe his team-mate had been told not to try to take it. That was not true and Verstappen made a point of snatching it on the final lap to claim the extra point and make sure he remained top of the world championship standings.
"I think it was a bit of a miscommunication between my engineer and myself," Perez told reporters ahead of this weekend's Australian Grand Prix. "I don't think there was anything more to it. I think the team did a good job of letting us race. I spoke with my engineers and it was all clear. I had a word with Christian after the race and it was all clear. It's nothing big.
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"I probably regret not having a go at the fastest lap, because I thought that was the case. But at the same time it's not that they told me something and they told me something different to Max – it was just down to us. To be honest, we've got a lot more respect for each other than people may think out there.
Sergio Perez tried to play down talk of division in the Red Bull camp (Getty Images)"There is great atmosphere within the team. There is a very high level of respect between each other in the team with all the engineers from his side, my side. I think we are both mature enough to know what is right and what is wrong. I think as long as that keeps being the case, I don't expect anything to change."
Despite those diplomatic words from Perez, Verstappen rejected the assessment of what happened in Jeddah. "That was no miscommunication," he replied bluntly when asked if he concurred with his team-mate. "The same thing was also asked in Bahrain, but the other way around. In the end from our side there was no more talk about it.
"If you look back on the first two weekends, it wasn't [a miscommunication]. We didn't have any additional explanation either. The positive thing is that our car is very competitive and that's what is required to challenge for championships."