Perez wants internal Red Bull talks after ‘unfair’ F1 team orders

The Mexican had been leading the Barcelona race after Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc retired with engine trouble, but was told not to fight teammate Max Verstappen who was running on an alternate strategy. 

Verstappen went on to win ahead of Perez, who was left unhappy at how Red Bull handled the situation. Perez had earlier seen his request to let him pass Verstappen so he could attack Mercedes’ George Russell turned down. 

After being instructed to let Verstappen through for a second time in the race, Perez replied to his team “that’s very unfair, but ok.” 

Following the chequered flag, he added: “I’m happy for the team, but we need to speak later.” 

Asked if he felt like he deserved to win, Perez replied: "I think so, I think so. Especially at the beginning when I gave the position to Max thinking I was going to get it back later but then we swapped strategies. 

“He went for the three [stop], I went for the two [stop]. It turned out to be a better strategy, the one he was on. 

“It’s a bit frustrating from my side at the moment but at the end of the day it’s a great team result. We are now leading to the constructors’ so that’s something I am very pleased with. 

"There are a few things that we will discuss internally what went on as when you’re driving you don’t understand much about the bigger picture. It’s just a normal thing. 

“I think the team momentum couldn’t be any better so it’s a great team, we are very united so we just need to discuss a few things internally, that’s it.” 

‘Absolutely the right thing to do’ 

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner backed the decision which ultimately helped Verstappen move into a six-point championship lead over Leclerc. 

“Our responsibility is to bring the two cars home with as many points as we can, and of course what Checo couldn’t see at the time, which he could see perfectly well now, is that the had such a long stint to do on the medium tyre. 

“Max had such a tyre advantage from a team perspective that there is just no point in taking that risk with an intermittent DRS, with temperature raging up and down. So it was absolutely the right thing to do.” 

Horner thanked Perez for playing the team game, adding: “I spoke with him when he got out the car and I think the problem for any driver is that if they don’t have the clear overview of a strategy or race plan in front of them, it is always going to be emotive to give up a lead. 

“But he played very much a team game, I think he understood clearly that it wasn’t a like-for-like fight because the pace delta between the strategies was so great that from a team point of view it just didn’t make any sense, which is why we didn’t let the drivers get into a fight today.”