Red Bull won’t be able to ‘control’ Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in 2023 F1 title fight, claims Johnny Herbert

2023 is building up to a title fight between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, and Johnny Herbert doubts that Red Bull will be able to control their actions.

Red Bull won’t be able to ‘control’ Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez in 2023 F1 title fight, claims Johnny Herbert

Red Bull's Sergio Perez (L) and Christian Horner (R)

Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez have the makings of a title fight between them. First, the RB19 looks nigh on untouchable. That means drivers outside Red Bull do not consistently have the chance to win races, let alone fight for the championship. Plus, both drivers have asserted that they want to win the title. And they’ve begun the season by trading wins – it’ll be Perez’s turn to respond in Imola. The fact that the car is so dominant means Red Bull should be okay with an inter-team title fight.

That is, as long as it remains clean. There’s no guarantee it will. There are many examples of such fights turning ugly – Alain Prost vs Ayrton Senna, and Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg are the rivalries that stand out. There does seem to be some needle between the Red Bull drivers, particularly since last year’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix, but their relationship does not seem to have broken down.

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Red Bull have experienced inter-team title fights before – when Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were teammates. It was especially close between them in 2010, less so (Vettel was on top later) in later years, but the animosity between the teammates remained. One notable example of drivers being ‘disobedient’ remains the Multi-21 incident, at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix.

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Keeping this in mind, Johnny Herbert, who won 3 races with Benetton and Stewart, felt that it could be hard for RB and Christian Horner to manage the Verstappen-Perez title battle. In conversation with Express Sport, he said: “Going back to Sebastian and Mark. There was a bit of that for sure about the championship. Did they control it? You can probably see what Sebastian did in Malaysia. They weren’t able to control that.”

Read More: Toto Wolff draws on Hamilton-Rosberg experience to explain managing ‘very tricky’ Max Verstappen-Sergio Perez title fight

Herbert hopes RB will continue to let Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez race

Max Verstappen (L) and Sergio Perez (R)
Max Verstappen (L) and Sergio Perez (R)

It is quite hard to convince drivers to compromise their races in the heat of battle. Especially when they believe they have a chance to win. So, Johnny Herbert remarked: “Can you control the driver when he’s in the cockpit? Well, the only way you can control him if he’s going against you as a team in that moment is have a red button on your computer and you basically turn the engine off.”

But there can be consequences to disobeying the team, of course. The former Benetton man explained: “The only other way you can do that is make his life more difficult when you go to the next race. But by doing that you only harm yourself as a team. So actually, you can have a word and sort of say ‘come on respect each other, we will let you race’.” Further, he hopes that Red Bull will continue letting Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez race: “I hope that sort of continues.”

As for the relationship between the Red Bull teammates – Herbert doesn’t feel there is a ‘feud’ there, just yet. However, he feels that when the championship is ‘really being fought’ between them, this will become more of a problem. The Briton also hopes that the team won’t enact restrictions, or battling rules for Verstappen and Perez.

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