Frustrated Button furious with new team-mate Perez in Bahrain

A week after team principal Martin Whitmarsh called for Perez to “toughen up” and “get his elbows out”, Perez yesterday overstepped the mark.

In a Bahrain Grand Prix won at a canter by Red Bull’s reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel, all the action happened behind the German, notably involving Perez. What Whitmarsh would not have anticipated when he spoke to the 22-year-old following last Sunday’s race in China was that the primary recipient of Perez’s new-found fortitude would be Button.

For a number of laps the duo duked it out, with Perez at one point clipping the back of Button’s right-rear wheel, losing a small part of his front wing in the process.

Worse for Button, even though he could have gained a puncture from such an incident, was when Perez banged wheels with the 33-year-old at the end of the main straight at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Come the chequered flag, Perez at least produced his best result for McLaren of sixth, while Button had to settle for 10th as for once he endured tyre trouble and needed to pit on four occasions.

Button was far from happy with Perez, and said: “There was a lot of clean racing, which was good – apart from with my team-mate.

“I’ve raced with many team-mates over the years, and I had quite an aggressive team-mate in Lewis (Hamilton).

“But I’m not used to driving along a straight and having a team-mate coming alongside me and wiggling his wheels at me.

“Maybe it’s the way we go racing now, but it’s not the way I want to.

“He touched me from behind and he touched me on the side going in a straight line at 300 kilometres an hour. That’s dangerous. I don’t really enjoy that. I’ve had some tough fights in F1, but not quite as dirty as that.”

In response, Perez, who also pushed Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso off the track at one point, came out fighting.

“It was very aggressive with all of them, but I fought them as much as they fought with me,” he said.

“I agree we (he and Button) were too aggressive, but then he was as aggressive as I was as I went off the track a few times.”

For Vettel, his 28th career win was all too easy, finishing ahead of Lotus pair Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean in a repeat of last year’s podium at this race.

Vettel described his triumph as “a flawless, seamless race from start to finish”, with his pace “phenomenal”.

Vettel now has a 10-point lead over Raikkonen, with a 27-point gap to Lewis Hamilton who was fifth for Mercedes behind Paul Di Resta for Force India as he equalled the best result of his career with fourth.

Shanghai winner Alonso was down in eighth after two early pit stops to correct a DRS fault scuppered his race, leaving him 30 points down on Vettel.