Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez friction: Another Multi-21 ‘nightmare’ in the making following its 10 year anniversary?

Controversy and drama is never ending in the pinnacle of motorsport. Back in 2021, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were in a tightly knit championship fight which was won by the former in a somewhat controversial way. On the other hand, such incidents keep happening. The drama fuels entertainment levels and that in turn also boosts the popularity of the sport. Once such incident was the Multi-21 drama.

During his time at Red Bull in the year 2013, Sebastian Vettel had enjoyed to the fullest having bagged three back to back world championships till that moment. His dominance over the Formula 1 grid was scary. While Red Bull seemed to have the best car on the grid that year, it also led to internal problems between the two drivers. When one team has the fastest car, the only competitors for the world championship are the two drivers.

While Sebastian Vettel and Mark Weber were teammates at Red Bull for some time now, the 2013 Malaysian GP has tough times for the squad. During the 2nd race of the season, Seb was P1 while Weber was P4 on the grid. During the race, the German was asked to follow the Multi-21 function and that is where it all changed for the two drivers. The main reason behind the radio call was with respect to the tyre wear on both the cars.

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What is Multi-21 and how did it affect Sebastian Vettel and Mark Weber?

Multi-21 was basically an instruction to Sebastian Vettel for maintaining his position (P2) and letting Mark Weber finish the race ahead of him. In an interesting turn of events, Sebastian went to overtake Weber just 13 laps before the race got over. This meant that he directly disobeyed team orders and led to a friction between the two drivers.

“The ensuing conversation was the most disappointing moment of our entire relationship,” Webber said. “He said he was pissed off by what I had said on the podium in Malaysia, that while he respected me as a driver he had no respect for me as a person,” the Aussie driver went on to conclude. It was clear that he was not at all happy with what had happened. It showed how difficult their relationship had gotten.

Could we get a Multi-21 repeat with Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez?

After the 2023 Saudi Arabian GP, people have speculated about the relationship between Max and Sergio slowly gets worse. Just like 2013, both the drivers have the fastest car on track which has led to them being each other’s only competition for the world championship.
In that too, the Red Bull big wigs will give preference to Max Verstappen as it is clear when it comes to who the star driver is in the team.

However, that doesn’t mean Sergio Perez isn’t free to race Max and compete for the world championship. While it seems like Max Verstappen is not very keen on following orders as he did so by taking the fastest lap at the ending stage of the race. This gave him a one point lead over Perez in the championship following his P2 finish at Jeddah. While Perez has done so much for Verstappen, it seems like the Dutchman is not ready to do the same for him.

The trail of the increasing friction between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez starts right from the 2022 Brazil GP drama. Verstappen compromised and made sure that Perez won’t be able to achieve P2 in the drivers championship. This was in response to Checo crashing his car in Monaco during qualifying preventing Max from finishing his lap. As the car gets better, the friction between the two drivers is just going to keep getting worse.

In case you missed it:

Max Verstappen will put ‘huge pressure’ on Red Bull to stop Sergio Perez from spoiling his championship ambitions, claims Damon Hill

Carlos Sainz doesn’t understand why people get upset over dominant F1 teams like Red Bull

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