F1: Former Red Bull employee blasts Austrian team with baseless comments

Sebastien Bourdais clearly still holds a grudge against his former employer, Red Bull Racing, after he branded them "unsportsmanlike" following Max Verstappen's title triumph at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. The Frenchman, apart from those connected to Lewis Hamilton, was probably the only one unhappy with the stellar job Sergio Perez did to hold up the Mercedes driver after his pitstop.

The Mexican, who was yet to stop, was told to hold up Hamilton to help Red Bull teammate Verstappen close the gap to his title rival. And despite being on almost 20-lap-old soft tyres, Perez did a stellar job of battling the Mercedes driver, who was on a fresh set of hard tyres.

Hamilton lost almost six seconds in just one lap battling Perez. It allowed Verstappen to close the gap from nine seconds to within two seconds and remain inside the pit stop window of Hamilton for the rest of the race, which aided him when the Safety Car emerged with four laps remaining.

While Hamilton complained about dangerous driving from the Mexican, which was baseless, Verstappen praised his teammate for being an "animal" in his defence against his title rival. Perez also received praise from a number of F1 commentators and former F1 drivers for helping his teammate, but Bourdais was clearly not impressed.

F1 commentator Will Buxton was quick to praise Perez for his defensive drive but came under fire from the Frenchman, who drove for Scuderia Toro Rosso (now Alpha Tauri) in 2008 and the start of the 2009 campaign. He was sacked midway through the 2009 season for his inability to match his less experienced teammate Sebastian Buemi.

"The Red Bull just doesn't look like it's got the race pace to keep up with Mercedes as Verstappen slips back again but my word what an incredible piece of defensive driving from Perez. Sensational," Buxton wrote on Twitter during the race.

"I thought you loved racing, that was BS. I can't begin to understand how Perez can be happy with himself and how people applaud him for what he did," Bourdais responded. "Purposely slowing down and using every dirty trick to impede Hamilton. Zero sportsmanship, from the whole team really."

It sounded like Bourdais was commenting simply to put down his former team, as teammates helping each other is a tactic that has always been used in Formula 1. Earlier in 2021 Fernando Alonso put up a staunch defence against Hamilton to help Esteban Ocon win in Hungary.

Ocon even repaid the favour to Alonso at the Qatar Grand Prix when he held up Perez to ensure the Spaniard held on to his third place. Buxton was quick to respond to the Frenchman pointing out Alonso's drive in Hungary this year, while the former Toro Rosso driver also received more criticism from fans on the social media site.

"It's fair game. You know that. Did you mind Fernando fighting Lewis in Budapest to enable Esteban a bit of breathing room? Sure this was more extreme but teams deploy this tactic all the time. Just usually doesn't work quite so well because the faster car breezes past."