A racing veteran has criticized Sergio Perez’s defensive driving in Abu Dhabi.
Sebastien Bourdais, a racing veteran, criticized Sergio Perez’s driving in Abu Dhabi as “unsporting.”
At the Yas Marina Circuit, Perez played the ultimate team game by holding off Lewis Hamilton by 1 than six seconds in an attempt to help Max Verstappen catch up as the Dutchman chased his first championship crown.
Perez, who had been left out on the track after the Mercedes driver pitted, pushed as hard as he could to keep in front of Hamilton. Perez was passed down the back straight, only for the Mexican to clear Hamilton down the next straight by using his battery power deployment.
“Checo is a legend!” Verstappen exclaimed as Perez pulled over to let him through, with his Race Engineer responding, “Absolute animal!”
Because of Perez’s interference, Verstappen was able to stay within Hamilton’s pit window, and Mercedes was unable to pit Hamilton under the Safety Car when it was deployed to cover Nicholas Latifi’s collision – a crucial moment as Red Bull bet on Verstappen and won the race.
“How can Perez be happy with himself?
However, Bourdais, a four-time Champ Car champion, stated he didn’t think the driving was fair.
“I thought you loved racing, that was BS!” Bourdais tweeted in response to F1’s Will Buxton praising Perez’s defence.
“I can’t begin to understand how Perez can be happy with himself and how people applaud him for what he did.
“Purposely slowing down and using every dirty trick to impede Hamilton. Zero sportsmanship, from the whole team really.”
Bourdais is a former Formula One driver who worked for Red Bull in 2008 and 2009 for Toro Rosso. Jaime Alguersuari took his place in mid-2009.
“They completely sacrificed Perez’s race to put him in that position,” Bourdais said in response to other commenters and answers to the tweet.
“Losing purposely seconds per lap to impede, look again… He wasn’t trying to stay ahead, but only slowing Lewis as much time as possible.”
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