What is the row between Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen?

Verstappen refused to let Perez pass in the Mexican's quest to P2 in the championship.

Following the Brazil GP, there has been tension around the Red Bull garage which was the subsequent result of Max Verstappen not letting Sergio Perez pass him. The context is that Perez is currently fighting Ferrari driver Leclerc for P2 in the championship. Red Bull has wrapped both titles this year. But to assert complete dominance, their priority currently is to round off the season with a 1-2 standing finish in the driver's championship.

Following Saturday's Sprint race, the Red Bulls started in the second row. The Red Bulls looked slow throughout the race. However, in the last lap, the pit wall asked Verstappen to let Perez pass as he was just behind him. He refused to lift off as gave his reasons. On the radio, he said, "I told you already last summer. You guys don't ask that again to me, ok? Are we clear about that? I gave my reasons and I stand by it."

His comments baffled everyone, including team consultant Helmut Marko himself.

Upset Perez

Earlier in the race, Verstappen overtook Perez in his quest to overtake Alonso for P5. He couldn't do so. Keeping in mind the bigger picture, he was asked to give the place back to his teammate. It was like 2017 Hungary GP all over again when Bottas was asked to give Hamilton the third place to attack the Ferraris. Except in that case, Hamilton gave the podium place back to his teammate in the last corner when he failed to do so.

Perez, for sure, sounded massively upset in both radio conversations and debriefing. "It shows who he really is," retaliated the Mexican. "After all I've done for him, it's a bit disappointing," he added. Over his time at Red Bull, Perez has displayed fantastic bits of teamwork display for Max. In the French Grand Prix last year, Perez helped Max Verstappen go through to chase down Lewis Hamilton. He later showed his own mettle and secured a double podium for the Austrian squad. His most infamous moment would be last year's season finale. In Abu Dhabi, he defended Hamilton for a long time, which prevented him from pitting at the right time and allowed his Dutch teammate to catch up to his championship rival. Throughout the year, he had tremendous battles with Hamilton which eventually helped Verstappen in the race.

Red Bull was quick to calm everything

The team was quick to call things as team principal Christian Horner called a meeting with his two drivers the same day.

Horner stated that they work as a team and they race as a team. He made it clear that the team's current objective is to help Checo finish second in the championship in order to secure the 1-2 standing for Red Bull.

Horner has made sure that everything will be solved internally. Perez, however, expects that everything will be handled by the "grown-ups". Whereas Verstappen insisted that if any such situation arises in Abu Dhabi, he will help his teammate.

Is this all because of Monaco?

During the debrief interviews, a journalist straightaway asked Verstappen if the matter is a reflection of the Monaco qualifying incident. He smirked a little and asked to guess himself. This apparently has indicated that this could be a reflection of the Monaco qualifying.

In Monaco, Perez started third and eventually won the race following Ferrari's horrible strategical play for Leclerc. However, he crashed in Saturday's qualifying which apparently evaded Verstappen from putting in his best lap. It later came out that Perez accepted that he crashed on purpose. If that's true, Max's disappointment could have an actual reason. Max finished that race third after starting fourth.

Perez will go into the final race with as many points as Charles Leclerc. Both of them are tied at 290 points.