Perez blames Hamilton for 'ruined' Belgium sprint race

Sergio Perez blamed Lewis Hamilton for contact between the pair on the exit of Stavelot on lap 7 that left the Red Bull with a large hole in its sidepod, which quickly resulted in his retirement from Saturday's Sprint race.

Perez said that Hamilton was in too much of a rush to recover from a poor starting position, after the Mercedes finished the Showdown in seventh place putting him alongside Perez on the grid for the Sprint.

Hamilton received a five second penalty after the front-left of the Mercedes clipped the right-hand side of the Red Bull which meant he dropped from fourth to seventh in the final classification.

Hamilton wasn't too bothered by the sanction and said the contact had been simply a racing incident, but the view was not shared by Perez and his Red Bull crew.

"He was in a bit of a hurry. Everyone was in a bit of a hurry to recover as it was a very short race - you have to take those risks - but it was not nice to get my race ruined by him."

"It was massive damage from contact from Lewis," Perez told the media in the paddock at Spa-Francorchamps after parking the car. "He ran out of grip and just went into the side of me. It was unfortunate.

• Read also: Verstappen wins wet Belgian sprint as Hamilton and Perez clash

"He just hit the whole right-hand side of the car and it damaged the floor, and that was game over," adding that until then the race "was looking great, we were about to get Gasly before the safety car came out."

After the contact, a lack of grip meant Perez ended up sailing into the gravel

“With the floor damage I had, I lost a lot of downforce on the floor,” he said. “So unfortunately then the rear end was just tailing, the tyres were going off and I couldn’t get any closer.

“That meant game over on my race. Anyway, I look forward for tomorrow," he said, hoping for better fortune in the Belgian Grand Prix where he will start from the front row. "Hopefully tomorrow we can recover those points.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner confirmed that “Unfortunately the contact – left-front to sidepod – put a big hole in the sidepod, and you lose so much downforce.

“You could see he really lost a huge amount of performance, so we had no choice but to retire the car," he told Sky Sports F1. That was very unfortunate.”

Up to then, Perez had benefitted from a well-timed early pit stop to change from full wets to intermediate tyres, which had put him ahead of several cars ahead of him.

“Checo had an amazing stop and a great release that jumped both the Ferrari and Lewis, so that elevated him to fourth," Horner said. “We took the start and we had confidence that we should have good pace, but of course you never know."

Verstappen waited until the second lap under green flag conditions before stopping, initially dropping behind McLaren's Oscar Piastri before retaking the spot shortly after the restart following Fernando Alonso's spin.

"A very strong drive again by Oscar Piastri today," Horner noted. "Max commented that you could see that Oscar used the tyres quite hard quite early on and then that made it easier for him to convert the win.”

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