Max Verstappen Refuses Sergio Perez Empathy With Harsh Flashback – “You Were Unlucky Last Year”

Samriddhi Jaiswal | 01/05/2023
Max Verstappen Refuses Sergio Perez Empathy With Harsh Flashback - “You Were Unlucky Last Year”

Max Verstappen took a sly dig at his teammate Sergio Perez after he failed to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. In the cooldown room after the race, Verstappen did not budge from giving Perez a flashback of the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

In the early stages of the race, the reigning champion got a bit unlucky with the safety car deployment and thus lost the lead in the race. As the race further proceeded, he did not have a grip on his tires and failed to overtake Perez despite DRS enabled.

Watching the highlights of the race in the cooldown room, Perez told Max, “You were unlucky there.” To which the Dutchman quickly responded, “It happens. You were unlucky last year.”

Nevertheless, filled with joy and excitement, Perez celebrated his second win of the season with his team as he dove onto them after getting out of the car in Parc Ferme.

Red Bull’s pit stop led to an “unlucky” situation for Sergio Perez last year

Similar to this year, Perez started the race from P2 at the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. While he had a good start to the race passing pole-sitter Charles Leclerc in the first lap of the race, Perez got unlucky with his tire strategy and thus could not claim the victory.

On lap 9 after Carlos Sainz stopped at the side of the track and triggered a virtual safety car deployment. Under the VSC all the drivers on the grid decided to take a pit stop but Perez chose to stay out. Only after a few laps, Verstappen overtook Perez for the lead of the race.

Later in the race, Perez pitted to get equipped with a set of hard tires, but a slow pit stop from the Red Bull pit crew led him to get overtaken by both Verstappen and Leclerc. Eventually, Verstappen won the race as Perez finished P2.

Max Verstappen explains how he got unlucky with the Safety Car

Verstappen had started the race from P2 and he was soon on his overtaking spree as he went past Leclerc. But he could not capitalize on it after he was met with an unlucky situation.

After being put under extreme pressure by his teammate Perez who had also overtaken Leclerc, Verstappen decided to pit. But as soon as he did so, AlphaTauri’s Nyck De Vries stopped on the side of the track triggering a safety car deployment.

This led Perez into getting the lead of the race which he perfectly held on to as he was pushed to the limit being chased by Verstappen throughout the race. Furthermore, after the race, Verstappen told Sky Sports that he lost a bit of the rear grip and was not completely satisfied with the balance of the car.

Post Edited By: Samriddhi Jaiswal
Max Verstappen Red Bull Sergio Perez

About the author

Samriddhi Jaiswal

Samriddhi Jaiswal is an F1 editor and writer at The SportsRush. She started her career as a business journalist but soon found her calling in lights out here we go! Samriddhi has been a Ferrari fan even when her interaction with F1 was occasional. Her first real experience with the thrilling sport came when Charles Leclerc clinched his iconic victory in Spa and Monza and painted the track red. Now, a Tifosi, Samriddhi is a hardcore fan of the prancing horse and can relate to the chaos within the Italian camp and also admires Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Off the track, she finds her home in books and musical instruments.

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