Max Verstappen from Sergio Pérez’s perspective: how deep does this thorn go?

To date, the 28-year-old Dutchman Max Verstappen has had eight team-mates in Formula 1: Carlos Sainz at Toro Rosso, followed by Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, Sergio Pérez, Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda and, since the start of the season, Isack Hadjar at Red Bull Racing. They all have one thing in common: in most cases, they came off second best against Max.

Against Sainz, the qualifying head-to-head stood at 12–11, and against Ricciardo at 34–23. But then: 11:1 against Gasly, 25:1 against Albon, 80:10 against Pérez, 2:0 against Lawson, 22:0 against Tsunoda. With Hadjar, the score in the current 2026 season now stands at 6:3 in Max’s favour.

In race head-to-heads (with both drivers finishing), the record stands at 12–9 against Sainz, 35–22 against Ricciardo, 11–1 against Gasly, 17–9 against Albon, 79–11 against Pérez, 2–0 against Lawson, 21–1 against Tsunoda, 4–0 against Hadjar.

In a round-up of the 2025 GP season, our colleagues at Viaplay asked Max what he actually considered to be his ideal team-mate.

The 71-time Grand Prix winner replied: “It’s important to me that we get on well and that information about the car is shared openly and honestly. I’d also like someone who understands how to help with the development of the car.”

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“Friendly, funny, open-minded – not someone who holds anything back. I’d like someone who can work with me to drive the team forward. I think that’s the most important thing at work.”

One person who clearly hasn’t quite come to terms with his time alongside Verstappen yet is Sergio Pérez. He has secured five of his six Grand Prix victories thanks to Red Bull Racing, as well as 29 of his 39 F1 podium finishes. Without RBR, he would hardly have finished runner-up in the World Championship as he did in 2023.

Nevertheless, the 34-year-old Mexican keeps complaining about his time in Milton Keynes, as he did recently on the High Performance podcast.

The driver, who has competed in 290 Grand Prix races, says: “Competing against Max at Red Bull Racing is the biggest challenge. I mean, even facing Max on another team would be very difficult.”

“But going up against him at RBR, with his team, his people, his entourage – that’s tough, and you need the best of the best in every area, and you simply don’t have that there. Whilst he has every resource at his disposal when it comes to engineering – lead engineers, experienced engineers – everything is geared towards Max.”

In Oso Travo’s ‘Cracks’ podcast, Pérez went on to say: “It was always clear to me what I was getting myself into when I signed there. The then team principal, Christian Horner, told me during the negotiations: ‘We’re obliged to field two cars, but this project was created for Max.’ I replied: ‘That doesn’t matter; I’ll help develop the car, I’ll support the team.’

“Then, in 2024, the pressure became immense. Christian was having a few problems, and I served as a welcome distraction. Suddenly, everyone was talking about my performances and how much I was struggling. It often seemed as though the mediocre performances were down to me alone. But I knew that wasn’t true. I never doubted myself. But I did criticise the car.”

“And then Max started complaining about the car too, and he was the man who coped best with a lively rear end. So if Verstappen criticises the car, it must be terrible. At Monza, Max said: ‘I can’t drive like this.’ And finally, they started listening to us.”

“At the next race in Baku, I had a modified underbody on the car, redesigned according to Max’s requests. I was a second faster than the others in practice. Everything was going great. I was battling for the win, then came the collision with Sainz on the final lap, and I never saw that underbody up close again.”

“Ultimately, everything became a problem. If I was faster than Max, it was a problem. If I was slower than Max, it was a problem.”