Despite securing his second Driver’s Championship this season, it seems Max Verstappen is in no mood to pull the pressure off the accelerator. During yesterday’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix in Brazil, the two-time world champion refused to accept team orders to let his teammate Sergio “Checo” Perez pass.   

Perez, who is currently competing with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc to have a one-two finish in the Driver’s Championship, was understandably left frustrated. With Perez and Leclerc locked on 290 points each, the two will now have to battle it out at the season finale in Abu Dhabi.   

The race, which eventually saw a Mercedes win through George Russell, was packed full of controversies, with most of the drama coming from Verstappen’s car. The Dutch driver was involved in an early collision with Lewis Hamilton.   

If that wasn’t enough, later during the closing stages of the race, Verstappen was given direct team orders – “Max, let ‘Checo’ through, please,” which fell on deaf ears. Once the cars had crossed the finishing line, Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase asked: “Max, what happened?”  

To which Verstappen replied, “I told you already last summer, guys. Don’t ask that again to me, okay? Are we clear about that? I gave my reasons and I stand by them.”  

Checo didn’t appear so thrilled about Max’s comments, saying – “Yeah, thank you for that, guys, thank you. This shows who he really is.” Perez’s race engineer, Hugh Bird, in response said: “I don’t know what to say.” However, the situation seems to be somewhat sorted out for now, with the 25-year-old saying later during an interview – “That’s why I first went to speak to the team before I came here. I put everything on the table. Why? I gave my reasons. I’m not going to say why.  But I think they understood and I explained it to them before, so it was not new to me and not new to them. But I think it’s more important as a team now that we finally sat together and really put everything on the table.” 

He further added, “And importantly, we move forward. We go to Abu Dhabi, of course, we want to win the race, but also if I get a chance to help Checo I will. That’s why it was important we had this meeting.”