Sergio Perez admitted that the Red Bull team order for "no fighting" with Max Verstappen was the correct call.
The Mexican got the fastest start in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, beating pole-sitter Charles Leclerc off the line to take the lead coming out of the first corner. For much of the early stages he looked comfortable there, but that all changed after the first virtual safety car period.
Carlos Sainz had gone into a run-off area after suffering a mechanical issue on lap nine, and when full racing resumed shortly after Perez was suddenly less secure. After possibly losing some temperature in his tyres while going slower, he was found wanting for grip.
So when Verstappen caught up to him on lap 15, the next step looked inevitable. "No fighting," was the instruction given to Perez by the team, and he duly obliged by offering little resistance as his team-mate passed and proceeded to speed off into the distance, winning the race.
The other Ferrari driven by Leclerc proved not to be a threat anyway as his engine gave up before the race's half-way point. But even despite that, the gap between Perez and Verstappen by the time the race finished was enough to prove that the Dutchman had been the quicker driver on the day.
And Perez was quick to admit that after the race, telling reporters that he knew the team had made the right strategy call on this occasion – even if it was at his expense. "He was clearly a lot faster at that stage of the race so it was the right call not to fight as I didn't have any pace at the time," he said.
"We also boxed too late [under the first virtual safety car] so there were a few things that played into the result today. But at the end of the day Max deserved the win because he was the faster car."
While he had accepted the result and the fact he was slower than Verstappen on this occasion, the Mexican said he still wanted clarity over exactly what had caused that to be the case. "I need to understand it, right now it didn't feel like I was hitting the tyres hard [on the first stint], it was right up to the virtual safety car where we lost the pace," he added.
"I think all the way to that stage things were looking right, things were looking OK, but it was mainly after the virtual safety car when we really dropped the pace massively. I am sure it is something related to it, we probably lost a bit of temperature on those tyres at that time, with some wear, so we have to understand that and what happened."
