Max Verstappen and Red Bull have dominated the 2023 F1 season so far. Max Verstappen has a 125-point lead over his teammate Sergio Perez. After the first 4 races of the season, the points gap was just 6. A horror run from the Mexican and a stellar run from the Dutchman followed. As the points gap keeps increasing, rumours of Red Bull tampering with Sergio’s car are becoming stronger. F1 expert Peter Windsor believes the Mexican will be fanning these flames in the background.
Max Verstappen’s dominance
2023 has been a dream run for Red Bull. They have largely been unchallenged by other teams. This means the F1 drivers’ championship became a straight shootout between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. The first 4 races delivered on this promise, as both drivers won 2 races each. Heading into Miami, Max led Sergio by just 6 points.
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At Miami, Sergio started from pole while Max started further down after a mistake in qualifying. The Dutchman showed his speed on Sunday and won in a race with no incidents. It has all been downhill for Sergio since. The Red Bull man crashed in Monaco and had a long run of Q1 and Q2 eliminations. All this while, Max Verstappen racked up win after win. In Belgium, the Mexican was comprehensively slower than Max. Max started in P6 due to a penalty and still won the race by more than 20 seconds.
Murmurs get louder
Arturo Alias Ayub is the son-in-law of Carlos Slim, the sponsor of Sergio Perez. In an interview with Fox Latin, he claimed that Red Bull is purposely sabotaging Sergio Perez. He alleged that a driver cannot make this big of a difference.
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Peter Windsor rubbishes these claims
Peter Windsor rubbishes these claims. He remarks how no championship-winning team will ever purposely slow down one of their cars. He explained how Max’s early exits from the corners are helping him gain pace over Sergio.
Peter Windsor also believes Sergio Perez is fueling these theories from the background. No one who actually knows the sport will believe such an allegation. However, this will garner him more sympathy and love from his home country.