'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.

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 Verstappen win the grand prix. In reality, the Dutchman’s car had better race pace and - with the huge DRS and slipstream advantage afforded to a following car on the track’s final sector - would have likely taken the place at some point. His eventual winning margin and pace in the final two stints proved this. The significant thing is the tone of the message.

You wonder if other teams would have employed quite the same strength of order. Mercedes have in the past let their drivers slug it out on track, often to their detriment, especially in the Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton years. Had it been Valtteri Bottas against Hamilton their call might have been to keep it clean, rather than to avoid any kind of fight. “No fighting” is emphatic and clear: it means if Verstappen makes a move, then do not resist. And, of course, it was inevitable that he would.

This is not the first time this season this has happened. Perez was asked to move out of the way of Verstappen in Barcelona in May, albeit in slightly different circumstances. He, of course, knows his place in the team (having signed a new contract) and he said after the race that he had “no issues” with what happened. That might well be true but it must be demoralising, especially at this stage of the season and with Perez in such good form. Perhaps, if Verstappen continues to increase his lead in the coming months the orders might be different, but that seems unlikely.

Their call was understandable in some ways. With Ferrari hopeless again and forgetting not just how to win a race but how to finish it, an on-track collision with their two cars would not have been worth risking. Red Bull have history at this track, after all. But Perez is a clean and experienced driver.

The problem with Leclerc and Ferrari enduring a shocking four-race run - four poles yet only 30 points for the Monegasque compared to Verstappen’s 83 - is that if their misery continues then the Dutchman will march to his second world title almost unopposed.

Ferrari’s woes are not Red Bull’s problem. Had the Scuderia had their act remotely together in the last two months, the story would be different. But after the thrills of 2021, a Verstappen cake walk would be an unsatisfactory outcome for Formula One.