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being a teammate of max verstappen is very difficult for a young talent

Perez warns Lawson: 'I don't want to be in his shoes'

8 January at 07:00
  • Ludo van Denderen

It has become completely quiet around Sergio Perez. Every now and then the Mexican posts something on Instagram, but apart from that, he keeps a low profile. Perez has not yet given an extensive response to his departure from Red Bull Racing. In any case, next season, it will not be him, but Liam Lawson who will be Max Verstappen's teammate.

Friend and foe agree that Lawson faces a tough job. Beating Verstappen seems impossible, and staying close to him is already going to be quite a task. Perez knows better than anyone about how tough it is to be the four-time world champion's teammate.

Last December in Abu Dhabi, at a time when Perez was still uncertain about his future at Red Bull, he told GPblog and others: "It's an incredible challenge. I knew what I signed for when I came here. It's an incredible challenge that people should not underestimate the level of experience, the level of capacity, of mental strength that you need to cope with the extreme challenge."

Lawson is not to be envied, according to Perez

Perez was an experienced driver who was given the run-of-the-mill by Verstappen. So next season Lawson gets to try, an admittedly talented but inexperienced F1 driver [11 Grands Prix, ed.]. "Being teammates with Max at Red Bull as a young driver, I wouldn't like to be in those shoes. People cannot underestimate the level of challenge that they're seeing," Perez concluded.

This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy

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