Was what Red Bull and Pérez did at Abu Dhabi good tactics, acceptable, expected, or bad sportsmanship?

Were Red Bull and Pérez right to do what they did?

  • Total voters
    9
Brogan

Brogan

Legend
Staff Member
Sébastien Bourdais is convinced it was really dirty tactics from Red Bull and Pérez.

The team sacrificed Pérez' race to purposely delay Hamilton, allowing Verstappen to catch up.

Many have commented that they think Pérez was deliberately short fuelled and Red Bull retired him on purpose to avoid him running out of fuel on the track.

I don't have an issue with a driver defending their position but to deliberately create this situation just to impede one driver at the expense of another, just stinks to me.
Especially when it is two drivers who are both in with a chance of the WDC in the final race.

What about you?

www.planetf1.com

Sebastien Bourdais takes aim at 'poor sportsman' Sergio Perez after Abu Dhabi GP

Sebastien Bourdais was not impressed with Red Bull's tactics to slow Lewis Hamilton in Abu Dhabi, saying it showed "zero sportsmanship".
www.planetf1.com www.planetf1.com
 
It is unfortunate that the unsatisfactory race result is going to throw up lots of theories like this.

Personally, I would believe Red Bull of being capable of anything but there is no way to prove or disprove it. Regardless, Perez may not have been aware of such a plan. He may not have known the reason for his retirement.
 
I have to say, and I posted this in the Perez thread, I thought this was the one part of the race that was absolutely great.

I have no problems with what RBR did here and in these circumstances this is what a teammate is for.

I thought the battle between Hamilton and Perez was great. Both drivers hanging it out but respecting each other.

There isn't a team in F1 that wouldn't have done the same thing which is what makes Bottas's performance all the more awful.

I don't know how he was being handled inside the team but he clearly put the absolute minimum effort into helping Mercedes achieve their end of season goals.

For what it's worth I don't believe Perez was short fuelled but I do believe they detected a fault on his car in the last few laps and were desperate not to cause another safety car or VSC.
 
Not really, back in the early days the numbers 2, and 3, possibly even 4 were there to suppoert No.1, when his car crapped out or crashed No.1 took over the next team car nearest the front, so no difference really, the no.2 is always sacrificial
 
cider_and_toast said:
I have to say, and I posted this in the Perez thread, I thought this was the one part of the race that was absolutely great.

I have no problems with what RBR did here and in these circumstances this is what a teammate is for.

I thought the battle between Hamilton and Perez was great. Both drivers hanging it out but respecting each other.

There isn't a team in F1 that wouldn't have done the same thing which is what makes Bottas's performance all the more awful.

I don't know how he was being handled inside the team but he clearly put the absolute minimum effort into helping Mercedes achieve their end of season goals.

For what it's worth I don't believe Perez was short fuelled but I do believe they detected a fault on his car in the last few laps and were desperate not to cause another safety car or VSC.
Click to expand
^^^

I thought RB and especially Perez were superb.
 
Hamberg said:
^^^

I thought RB and especially Perez were superb.
Click to expand
For all their smarmy PR sickly bullshit, and Horner... They have been far more aggressive and risk taking with their strategy this season which is one of the reasons they got themselves into a championship winning position.

Mercedes by contrast have been far more conservative, definitely playing the percentages which hasn't always gone in their favour.
 
There's aggressive and risk taking and then there's cheating.

You'll never convince me that Perez was retired for a problem - RB planned the whole thing.
 
no problem with perez driving. i thought that was perfect team players by 2 drivers who executing the plan perfectly

unlike the other non existent teammate. who literally couldn't have been any less help. Finnish by nationality thankfully finished at Mercedes
 
Perez backing Hamilton up was fair - it’s a team sport (when it needs to be). If his driving has been dangerous that would be different.

Whether he was short-fuelled or not, and I wouldn’t put it past RB or other teams to do that, is moot.
 
I'd very much doubt Red Bull would consider Perez to be pulled in because they could have won the constructors
As for being a mobile chicane well he was paid to do that as much I don't like it . That is how you be a wingman

Yes he cost Hamilton 5 seconds but its irrelevant if you talking about the safety car at the end because the additional gap created would have meant Hamilton would have passed the pits
 
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