The fight for Red Bull's second Formula 1 seat went from metaphorical to literal in the Mexican Grand Prix when Sergio Perez and Liam Lawson collided.
There is now more than just subtext to their battle. They clashed on track, had a war of words off it and, whether it was intentional or not, Red Bull started to take a side.
The contact with Lawson in Mexico incensed Perez, whose home race was already severely compromised by a poor qualifying session and a silly penalty for being out of position at the start, but was ruined completely by the damage he picked up when RB driver Lawson refused to yield easily to the man he wants to replace at Red Bull Racing in 2025.
Both Perez and Lawson are chasing the seat alongside Max Verstappen next year and Perez has the advantage as the incumbent driver.
Until now, the focus has been on who does the best job with the equipment they are given in different teams, and how Red Bull rates them. Now there's needle between them.
Red Bull was unimpressed with the fact two of its drivers collided, that goes without saying. But history tells us that if Red Bull wants to throw its weight behind a driver, it does. And logic would dictate the driver in the main team would get priority and the junior driver causing problems would get smacked down.
Which begs the question: did Perez just lose a key battle with his main threat Lawson off-track, as well as on it?
Although Lawson is understood to have apologised to Perez, he had no instruction to let Perez by, was free to race him, and the stewards determined it was a racing incident.
The Red Bull stance was careful. Team principal Christian Horner didn't offer much, if anything, in Perez's defence.
Red Bull senior advisor Helmut Marko was a bit more critical of Lawson directly, stating that he felt he was more the guilty party and was too strong against another Red Bull driver. But that's as far as it went; it certainly wasn't damning.
Normally we would expect Red Bull to take a very dim view of such an incident given it cost the senior team points. Think how badly it could have reacted to its junior driver getting caught up in a clash that to all intents and purposes actively took one of the main cars out of the race.
A driver Red Bull doesn't rate might not even get a second chance. But Red Bull clearly doesn't share Perez's view that Lawson showed a temperament ill-suited to F1. It might even be the opposite.
Lawson, for better or worse, is rapidly making a reputation for being confident, strong-willed and uncompromising, and Red Bull doesn't seem to mind that.
Maybe in hindsight Red Bull bosses did take a dim view of how Lawson drove, and by Brazil the word will be that Lawson needs to show better judgement or restraint in future. But there's a simple rule most teams follow: back your own. And Perez might be wondering where his backing was when he wanted it.
Look at how Red Bull leapt to Verstappen's defence after the penalties he picked up fighting with Lando Norris on Sunday. Perez drives for the main team too but didn't get the same quality of defence.
That didn't just go for the Lawson clash, it stretches to his overall performance. This was a nightmare weekend for Perez in a self-described terrible season. And Horner didn't exactly convey a great deal of job security for a driver who is meant to have a contract until the end of 2026.
"We are working with him as hard as we can to try and support him, we've done everything that we can and we'll continue to do so in Brazil next weekend, but there comes a point in time that you can only do so much," said Horner.
"That scrutiny is always going to be there. There comes a point in time that difficult decisions have to be made."
Much like the reaction to the incident with Lawson, that is far from a ringing endorsement in Perez's favour.