Perez and Verstappen allowed to race 'until (it's) the team's interest'

Christian Horner is extremely pleased with Red Bull's performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Speaking to GPblog and others, the team boss praised Sergio Perez's race and addressed the apparent title battle between Perez and Max Verstappen.

After an early safety car, Perez managed to take over the race lead from Verstappen. The Mexican had his pit stop at a more advantageous time than his Dutch teammate, putting Perez in a better position for the second half of the race. Verstappen did manage to outsmart Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, but was then unable to overtake his teammate. Horner has nothing but praise for Perez's performance.

"Absolutely. I mean, Checo passed Leclerc and he closed the gap down to Max. Then, yes, he got lucky to a safety car, but as I said earlier, he then had to get on and deliver. You've got Max Verstappen behind you, he's not taking it easy. He was able to build up, I think, a 3.7-second lead at one point. All credit to Checo, he drove a great race today."

'Perez and Verstappen are allowed to race as long as it benefits the team'

With Perez's win, the Mexican is closing in further on leader Verstappen. The two Red Bull drivers are currently separated by a gap of just six points. As no one on the track can match the Red Bulls' pace, it seems they will only be each other's challengers. However, Horner stressed that as long as Red Bull can continue its current dominance, Verstappen and Perez are completely free to challenge each other as much as possible.

"Until the team's interest. If you're competing against a competitor, it becomes bigger than the driver's interest, but as it is at the moment, they're free to do it. They are both very competitive drivers, they both want to win. Which is why we are employed by the team. What matters is what they do on the track. We don't want a 2018 replay [when Ricciardo and Verstappen collided in Baku, ed.]. Today they pushed each other as hard as they could and there was a fine margin today which split the two."