Liam Lawson shows Sergio Perez middle finger as Red Bull rivals duel angrily at Mexico GP
Things got feisty between Sergio Perez and the man who wants his Red Bull Racing seat for next season, Liam Lawson, as they duelled on track at the Mexican Grand Prix
by Daniel Moxon · The MirrorLiam Lawson showed Sergio Perez what he really thinks of him as their duel at the Mexican Grand Prix turned ugly.
The Kiwi is gunning for the Red Bull seat currently occupied by Perez as the 34-year-old struggles for form. And they spent some of his home race engaged in a dogfight following a wretched qualifying performance.
But things went wrong when they collided, causing significant damage to the sidepod of Perez's car. Team principal Christian Horner would late claim it cost his driver "65 or 70 points" of downforce, which explained why he finished nowhere near the top 10.
Perez called Lawson an "idiot" later in the race, while the New Zealander also had his own rather unsubtle way of showing how he feels about his fellow racer. Footage from a camera on board his VCARB machine showed Lawson giving Perez the middle finger as he overtook him down the start-finish straight.
Lawson spent much of the race in and around the top 10 and would have hoped for back-to-back finishes in the points. But he picked up damage of his own later on in another duel and ended up limping home in 16th, one place ahead of Perez.
It was not the result he needed to apply further pressure on the Mexican's position, though his place alongside Max Verstappen is looking more tenuous than ever after a nightmare home race. Qualifying 18th was nowhere near good enough for a team in real danger of missing out on the constructors' title, nor was failing to score any points on race day.
As if that wasn't bad enough for Red Bull, Verstappen only managed to finish sixth after picking up 20 seconds worth of penalties for the way he duelled with title rival Lando Norris. But, speaking after the race, the Dutchman was more concerned about the speed of the car he was driving.
He said: "When you are slower, you are put in those kinds of positions. I am not going to give up easily. At the end of the day, it is also not about agreeing or disagreeing with the penalties - the only thing is that 20 seconds is quite a lot!
"The biggest problem for today, and what I am worried about, is the race pace. It was really not good, something we need to analyse. Even without those penalties, we had no chance at all to fight up front."
And team principal Horner added: "We just did not have the pace. We had good pace in quali yesterday but our race pace was nowhere compared to the Ferrari and the McLaren, so that is where our focus will be over the next five days."
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