F1 pundit blasts Sergio Perez's sponsor's 'ridiculous' claims about Max Verstappen's car

F1 pundit Peter Windsor has dismissed the claims made by Sergio Perez's sponsor that the Mexican's car is different from what Max Verstappen has under him.

After the race in Belgium where Verstappen dominated the entire field after starting in P6, what was even more interesting to watch was how much of a gap Max pulled out on his teammate as well.

It didn't look good on Sergio's part that Max Verstappen was able to dominate him in such a way and open up around a 20-second advantage over a stint. The race led to one of Perez's main sponsors crying foul play. Carlos Slim’s son-in-law, Artura Elias Ayub, went on a Mexican show and claimed that the two drivers were driving different cars.

Addressing these complaints from Sergio Perez's sponsor, Peter Windsor found the claims to be completely ridiculous. Speaking on his YouTube channel, he said that no team would intentionally try to sabotage its driver's result. Questioning the validity of the claim, he said:

"None of it’s real, and even if it was real, well even if you wanted to try to understand the point of view where, let’s put it this way, where and how are they actually messing around with Checo’s car and not giving him a proper race car? What are they doing? Apparently they think they’re giving him old bits, old parts and the car’s overweight. But that’s it really, I can’t think they can think of any more than that.”

Peter Windsor felt that Red Bull would rather want Sergio Perez to be right up there in case rthey run into reliability issues with Verstappen's car, ensuring that the Mexican could pick up the pieces. He said:

“Now the concept of Red Bull, racers as they are, knowing that Max could have a problem at any minute at any race because that’s the way Formula One is and that then they want their other car to be winning the race if possible, the concept of Red Bull actually deliberately making Checo’s car heavier, or fitting old bits that are going to break or something, is just so ridiculous."

He added:

"I’ve worked for Formula One for Ferrari and Williams, and I can tell you now there is absolutely no way in the world you would ever compromise the performance of a car deliberately.

This might not be the kind of dynamics Red Bull would want from Max Verstappen's teammate

Facing bad press in Mexico is exactly what Red Bull did not have in mind when the team picked Sergio Perez to be Max Verstappen's teammate. To add to this, the 2023 F1 season has not been the best for Perez. He's miles off Verstappen's pace and most of it has been down to his individual performance.

Despite this, the tension between the two drivers when they go wheel to wheel is palpable and there has been some friction since last season. If you add the bad press that Red Bull gets in Mexico to the underperformance on track, the team might be forced into looking at Daniel Ricciardo as a possible alternative.

If the Australian can demonstrate at AlphaTauri what he can do then we could be looking at a possible switch, especially if Red Bull continues to face these allegations.