Perez needed to beat Leclerc to finish runner-up in the F1 drivers’ 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:standings behind Verstappen.

However, Perez was unable to make his two-stop strategy work, finishing just over one-seco♋nd behind Leclerc on the one-stop at the chequered flag.

Perez famously blocked 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton during the 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with his stern d🔯efence being a big factor✅ in Verstappen ultimately winning the title.

In the post-ဣrace press conference, Verstappen was asked if there was an instruction from Red Bull to hold Leclerc up to help ꧅Perez.

“✱No, there was not, but also that is quite a tricky call to make,” Verstappen said. “You also 🤡don't want to end up… of course, you can possibly block but is that fair racing? I think not the nicest way going out of the season, like that. 

“And it looked like Checo was catching him enough to try and actually get a move but then he lost quite a bit of time with that bit of a fuss between… was it Pierre and A൲lex probably? You lost qu🌠ite a bit of time with that, because I was watching the screen.

“But yeah, unfortunate. I think, like Checo said, that second stint, because the deg was quite high on the Medium, in hindsight, probably, as a team, we could have pushed a bit more on that on that middle stint for Ch🐠eco, but that's always easy to say afterwards. At the time, we thought that we had to be a little b♎it careful on the tyres. 

“Again, we've had a lot of great wee🍃kends, but ev🌺en in great weekends, there are always things that you can learn.”

Midway through the race, Perez complained that he was “being held up” by Verstappen, who 🅠was running just♓ over two seconds ahead of him.

Explaining that exchange over team radio, Perez said: “Yeah, w🍷e were discussing it at some points. But, yeah, I think we thought that the deg was going to be higher than i🐲t really is. 

“And we just didn't push as much as we should have pushed on that second stint, and proba✱bly will left two♒ seconds on the table there.”