Karun Chandhok believes Max Verstappen "broke" Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez after passing him for the win in May Miami's Grand Prix. Perez had qualified on pole position in Florida with Verstappen down the grid in ninth after a mistake and a red flag prevented him from getting a clean lap in during Q3. The pole position followed on from Perez winning in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, with the Mexican knowing that if he finished ahead of Verstappen in Miami, he would take the lead of the Drivers' standings for the first time in his career. However, using a contra-strategy, Verstappen hunted Perez down and made an easy pass for the lead, and has not lost a race since as he closes in on Sebastian Vettel's all-time record of nine straight wins, heading into the summer break on eight. Perez meanwhile suffered a dip in form, including five straight failures to reach Q3 from Monaco to Britain, and has three podiums to his name since Miami, with Chandhok highlighting this as the turning point.
Verstappen breaks Perez
"I will say [Red Bull] appears to have broken its second driver in some ways," former Hispania F1 driver Chandhok explained on the Sky Sports F1 podcast. "At the start of the year, I go back to the drive he put in, in Jeddah, but more importantly in Baku. "David Croft [Sky Sports' lead commentator] and I were in the commentary box there saying he would have overtaken Max, let alone through the strategy, he would have overtaken Max on track and won that race. "It was a proper convincing performance, admittedly at one of his strongest circuits on the calendar. "But ever since he got overtaken on Lap 48 in Miami – it's just gone away from him. "I look at what happened even at the weekend at Spa. Max got ahead of him and he put 22 seconds on him in 27 laps. "That’s a big chunk of performance to put around a track where they are spending a lot of time at full throttle driving around in a straight line, essentially. "To me, that is the cause of concern, the only cause of concern, in the Red Bull camp. "Is this the fourth teammate [after Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon] that Max has potentially broken? Who can they have alongside him? "Or do they just say: 'You know what, we don’t really need anyone to be challenging him, we’re happy for somebody to be half a second off the pace because our car is good enough for Max to be able to deliver at that level'." Who do you think would come on top if Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were Formula 1 teammates at Red Bull? Let us know in the comments and by voting in the poll below!
Most read
