“It was good to see him smiling on the podium”– Max Verstappen finds happiness in Sergio Perez’s success

 “It was good to see him smiling on the podium”– Max Verstappen is grateful to have a teammate like Sergio Perez and happy for his success.

Red Bull mightily waited for a partnership like this at their disposal since Daniel Ricciardo left the team at the end of 2018. Finally, Sergio Perez, only six races old for his new team, has registered his first win for Red Bull.

Initially meant for Max Verstappen, a tyre failure almost spoilt Red Bull’s whole Monaco and Azerbaijan hard work, but fate, in the end, kept the Milton-Keynes based team safe.

Despite being shattered with his misfortune, he came to celebrate his teammate’s success and confessed that Perez is a great teammate, and he is happy seeing him full of prosperity.

“Of course I am frustrated from my side not to win but I was very happy to see Checo up there. He did everything that the Team could have wanted today,” said Verstappen to Red Bull.com.

“He had a great start and then we both got past Lewis in the pits. I heard he had to defend for most of the race, so if I couldn’t win, I’m glad he could. He’s a great guy and a great teammate so it was good to see him smiling on the podium and having his first win for Red Bull.”

Shame the gap couldn’t be a big one

Despite a successful Sunday for Red Bull, Verstappen regrets that the lead against Mercedes couldn’t have been any bigger, even though they had a chance to amass 44 points from this race.

“It’s a shame that we missed out on the opportunity to make the gap bigger to Lewis today in the championship as we know when we get back to the normal tracks Mercedes will be very strong again but it just goes to show anything can happen and it’s still a good result for the Team!”

About the author

Tanish Chachra

Tanish Chachra is the Motorsport editor at The SportsRush. He saw his first race when F1 visited India in 2011, and since then, his romance with the sport has been seasonal until he took up this role in 2020. Reigniting F1's coverage on this site, Tanish has fallen in love with the sport all over again. He loves Kimi Raikkonen and sees a future world champion in Oscar Piastri. Away from us, he loves to snuggle inside his books.

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