Last season, Max Verstappen became world champion for the first time in his career by beating Lewis Hamilton in the final race of the season. This year, however, Red Bull was accused of exceeding the budgetary cap imposed by the FIA. This was followed by reprimands from rival teams, which Sergio Pérez did not appreciate. In addition, the Mexican gave Verstappen a little message of warning for next year.

The Red Bull team, which has been extremely dominant throughout the season, is starting to make people envious. At the end of the year, an investigation revealed that the team of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez had exceeded the budgetary cost limit in 2021.

Mercedes, Ferrari and many others, were up in arms about Red Bull being severely punished. The main reason for this was Mercedes, who felt that this breach of the regulations had favoured Verstappen in his bid to win the world title at the expense of Lewis Hamilton. For Sergio Pérez, this is not the case.

“It shows that they are bad losers”.

Sergio Pérez is tired of the invective from rival teams who openly accused Red Bull of cheating.

“If you look at the facts, Max didn’t win the championship because of that. We didn’t get any performance advantage from it. The teams wanting to take advantage of this by putting Red Bull in a bad light is just unfair. It shows that they are bad losers,” the Red Bull driver said.

“I believe I can win the title”

Third in the championship behind Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez also sets the tone for 2023.

“If I can fight for the title? Yes, I believe so. At the beginning of the year, if you look at it, I was behind Max in the championship and in terms of performance.

“It’s just a matter of being more consistent, setting the car up better for me. But I’m still learning. It was just my second year with the team.

“I think I’m getting stronger and stronger. Obviously Max was driving at a really high level this season, he’s improved since last season, and obviously doing a fantastic job. I have no problem with that. I just need to work hard, work more closely with my team and try to beat him next year. I wouldn’t be in F1 if I didn’t think I could do it,” says Pérez.

Verstappen has been warned.