Sergio Perez overtook Mercedes’ George Russell to lead the Spanish Grand Prix after Charles Leclerc retired. The Red Bull driver was chasing his third career win. However, on Lap 49 Checo was asked to let his teammate Max Verstappen pass. The Dutchman eventually went on to win the race and take a lead in the drivers’ championship. 

Perez finished second, Russell third and Lewis Hamilton, who dropped to the back of the pack on Lap 1, managed to recover and finish fifth behind Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. 

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“It’s unfair but OK,” Perez told his team.

“Yes, I think it was close. But at any rate, same result, and I’m happy for that. We were on different tyre strategies at the time. I let mine expire in the beginning, then I thought at the time that I could go by and not lose crucial seconds, you know, to make my strategy work. But anyway, it’s a good team result,” Perez, who also won a point for recording the fastest lap, said after the race. 

Max Verstappen thanked Perez and hailed him as a “great team-mate” to have. 

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Red Bull principal Christian Horner said that he was impressed with the pace of the car. 

“It was tough. Nothing seemed to be working for us in that first half. We had the issue on Max’s car with the DRS and then he had that moment at Turn 4, a gust of tailwind and he did well to get through the gravel and re-join,” Horner said. 

Verstappen faced DRS issues all through the weekend. On the Lap 9 on Sunday, the reigning world champion drove into the gravel and dropped to P4. 

“At that point we decided, because he was stuck behind George, our best race was converting him to a three stop and as it panned out, that was the preferred strategy. The pace in the car today was very, very strong and it was a shame for Charles and I think it would have been a very interesting fight in the second half of the race,” Horner said. 

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He then praised Perez and explained the team’s call. 

“I have to shout out to Checo for playing the team game. They weren’t in the same race today, their strategies were different but he did fantastically well. The problem that we had was we had temperatures raging and the last thing you want to risk is a DNF when you have two cars that could do a 1-2.  We had two cars on different strategies so it wasn’t a straight fight,” the Red Bull boss said. 

“Checo’s tyres wouldn’t have made it to the end so that is why he pitted near the end to get that fastest lap. What Checo couldn’t see at the time was he had such a long stint to do on that medium tyre and Max had such a tyre advantage, as a team we didn’t need to take that risk.”