'No fighting’: Red Bull team orders hands Max Verstappen a clear path to second world title

For a man who was starting on the front row of the grid in Baku, Sergio Perez’s comments before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix were telling. 

This is a man who won the Monaco Grand Prix a fortnight ago to close to within 15 points of team-mate and championship leader Max Verstappen and to within six of second-placed driver Charles Leclerc. 

Perez started ahead of Verstappen on Sunday, but when asked for his thoughts before the lights went out he said the target was “maximising the team result” and to get both Red Bull cars ahead of the lead Ferrari of Leclerc. 

Yes, Perez did also say that he would go for a gap at turn one if he got the chance, but that seemed a secondary thought. He did, in fact, do just that and took the lead from Leclerc’s Ferrari at the start and then scampered off into extending his lead to nearly 1.5 seconds by the end of the first lap. Verstappen, at this point, was still in third. 

On lap 15, with Verstappen now second after Leclerc’s pit stop and closing up, leader Perez was simply told “no fighting” on the team radio by his race engineer. The move did not exactly look blatantly coordinated but, true to his orders, Perez did not put up much of a fight, allowing his team-mate to cleanly take first place by inviting him up the inside of Turn One. 

Verstappen passes Perez!

Max Verstappen very suddenly closed the gap on Sergio Perez and has passed him for the lead! 1️⃣ pic.twitter.com/Nj4dBwJIts

On paper Perez is in the championship battle - and after his second place on Sunday he is now Verstappen’s closest challenger - but Red Bull have decisively shown with their in-race call to Perez that any title fight between their drivers is theoretical. 

The significant thing here is not that this helped