Sergio Perez’s deleted ‘I want to be champion’ tweet raises questions after Saudi Arabia Grand Prix win

On Sunday, March 19, at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, Sergio Perez of Red Bull Racing registered a commanding win in the second race of the 2023 Formula 1 calendar. In the qualifying round on Saturday, he already secured a pole position, and he made the most of it by winning the final race.

Perez’s teammate Max Verstappen finished second, while Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin finished third. Red Bull now had two victories in a row this season after Max Verstappen claimed victory in Bahrain earlier this month. Verstappen performed an incredible comeback to finish on the podium despite starting P15 on the grid on a track noted for being challenging for overtakes.

“Of course, I recovered to second which is good, and in general the whole feeling in the team, everyone is happy, but personally I’m not happy, because I’m not here to be second,” Verstappen said after the race.

“Especially when you are also working very hard also back at the factory to make sure you arrive here in a good state, making sure everything is spot on, and then you have to do a recovery race – which I like, I mean I don’t mind doing it – but when you are fighting for a championship and it looks like it’s between two cars, we have to make sure the two cars are reliable.” He added.

I was told again to push then to maintain the pace: Sergio Perez

In the cooldown room, there were tense exchanges when Perez questioned Verstappen about why he pushed for the bonus point on the final lap despite being instructed to keep up a specific pace.

“I did enjoy the race to be honest, I enjoyed it a lot, especially at the end, just pushing each other with the lap times knowing that he went a tenth faster, tenth slower, tenth slower, and it was all pretty intense. Then we were told to maintain a certain pace, then I was told again to push then to maintain the pace – so it was just a bit all over the place.” Perez said after the race.

Later on Monday, Perez posted to Twitter: “It was tougher than I thought, but in the end I’m happy to get my fifth victory in F1. Very happy with the result of the team. We are going to keep pushing very hard, I want to be champion”.

However, the 33-year-old soon took down the message, uploading the identical tweet without the phrase “I want to be champion.”