Coming into 2023, Max Verstappen has absolutely dominated the season, taking 13 wins in 16 races in the process. However, his teammate Sergio Perez has failed to keep up with him throughout the season, and the same trend continued in Japan. As the Mexican failed to match his teammate yet again, Verstappen couldn’t help but take a slight dig at Perez, calling all cars “equal” as per GP Fans.
The Dutchman has continued his sheer dominance right from 2022. He had 15 wins under his belt last year, and as things stand, he is most likely to overtake his own record. For Perez, his performance has not been very up to the mark when compared to the defending champion.
Simply, simply, sublime 💪 #JapaneseGP 🇯🇵 pic.twitter.com/ZNILklfuSQ
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) September 23, 2023
Perez had such a dismal performance in the middle of the season that there were talks about him getting sacked by the end of the year or getting replaced by AlphaTauri drivers. Nevertheless, the 33-year-old managed to keep his seat.
Max Verstappen takes a dig at Sergio Perez
As Formula 1 is in Japan for the 16th round of this season, Verstappen returned to his usual dominant ways. The Dutchman took pole position by over half a second gap to his rivals. Comparatively, Perez qualified in P5.
When asked about their individual performances during the post-qualification interview, the Mexican driver shared that he faced problems with the setup of the car.
Max delivers BACK-TO-BACK poles in Suzuka 💪⏱️
Result 🏁 Max P1! 👊, PIA, NOR, LEC, Checo P5, SAI, HAM, RUS, TSU, ALO. #F1 pic.twitter.com/0hAUhV3hgC
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) September 23, 2023
“I think Max has been on a very high form, and I haven’t been able to extract the maximum from the car, haven’t been comfortable since I got here, so we tend to see these sort of gaps,” he said, according to a report published by GP Fans.
However, when Verstappen was asked the same question about his qualification performance, the Dutchman didn’t hold back but took the jibe. He firmly stated, “No, all I can say is that the cars are equal.” As things stand, Perez is adrift by 151 points from Verstappen despite having the same car.
Perez was almost at risk of losing his seat
Despite having the same dominant Red Bull RB-19, Sergio Perez couldn’t keep up with his teammate Max Verstappen, so much so that the 33-year-old driver failed miserably during mid-season.
This sparked fresh rumors of Red Bull replacing him with then-reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo. Ricciardo, who still has the dream to make a comeback in the main team, joined AlphaTauri instead and was delivering decent performances until injury.
Nevertheless, Perez found his form back, and the team’s top brass, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko, supported the former Racing Point driver. Now, it will be interesting to see if the Mexican star manages to keep his P2 by the end of the season.
