Verstappen aspirations unchanged by Perez Red Bull partnership

Max Verstappen has insisted the arrival of Sergio Perez at Red Bull "doesn't change" anything as he aims to challenge for the Formula 1 world championship.

Perez is Verstappen's fourth different team-mate in as many years. Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon have all been beaten by the Dutchman, with Albon being dropped at the end of last season.

The Mexican arrives at the team with high expectations having finished fourth in the drivers' standings last season with a maiden victory in Sakhir and when asked of his own expectations of Perez, Verstappen said: "I expect Checo to do a good job as he has done in his career in F1.

"I'm excited to work together with him and I hope we can bring the team a lot of points."

Verstappen was the sole challenger to Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas last season, narrowly missing out on splitting the two Mercedes drivers in last year's standings.

Adding he already enjoys a "good relationship" with the Mexican, Verstappen said it makes little difference to him which driver sits on the other side of the garage to him as his focus remains on the cars ahead.

He continued: “For me, it honestly doesn’t really change that much. For the team on the other hand I think we always want to score with two cars as high as possible so let’s see if that is going better this year.

“That is the goal, it is what we all want, to try and make it a bit more difficult for probably Mercedes. They must be the favourites still.”

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