Perez admits "It's a bit of a disaster" after Sainz clash

Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix ended two laps early for Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez, after the pair made contact and crashed on the penultimate lap while fighting over a podium position in Baku.

They had started the race alongside each other on the second row of the grid, with Perez managing to pass Sainz in the opening corners after the Ferrari was unable to get in front of Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri.

With both of them on medium tyres for a short first stint, Perez pitted first and both had to work their way past Alex Albon and Lando Norris who were staying out longer on hard tyres.

They gradually lost touch with the leaders, but in the closing laps Piastri and Leclerc were engaged in a furious battle that allowed Perez and Sainz to close u. With two laps remaining, a furious four-way battle broke out.

Piastri was able to power his way to safety. Perez went side by side with Leclerc in turn 1 but got out of shape which allowed Sainz to draw alongside him - and the pair touched with disastrous consequences.

• Read also: Stunning win for Piastri after late crash in Baku

Both cars spun out into the wall triggering a Virtual Safety Car that ended the race. Fortunately both drivers were unharmed, but they had very different takes on what had happened.

"I was attacking Charles into turn 2," said Sainz. "When I exited turn 2, Checo was on my left. We normally do a slight drift towards the left into the long straight, which I did like every other lap.

"Suddenly for some reason I don’t understand, Checo and I collided, which is unfortunate and also very disappointing," he said. "I didn’t do any erratic manoeuvre, put him against the wall or anything like that.

"I’m not someone who wants to put blame on either an excuse or put blame on another driver. It’s racing, everything happens super-fast," he added. "But my feeling today is that honestly I did nothing wrong.

"We were just, like every other lap, drifting a bit, a tiny, tiny little bit towards the left because that’s where the racing line is and we just touched. I didn’t expect the contact on my rear tyre. It is what it is.”

Perez had sounded furious over the team radio immediately after the accident but was more tempered by the time he spoke to the media back in the paddock.

“I felt that exiting Turn 2, there was plenty of room between both cars, and within a metre or two, we ended up making contact,” he said.

“In my opinion Carlos moved too quickly to follow the tow from Charles as he went to the inside and that really made things really hard," Perez mused. "It was just wrong time, wrong moment, and it resulted in a huge shunt.

“It’s very unfortunate, it all happened so quickly. A real shame that it happened. Not really a lot more to say," he said, adding that he was "super frustrated that we both ended our weekends like that for our teams."

It's especially unfortunate for Perez who was finally looking back on form after a recent slump meant he hadn't been on the podium since the Chinese Grand Prix in April, but he was happy with his race performance up to the crash.

“I think we had the pace to fight for the victory today," he said, calling is a massive step forward for the team. "We just have to keep it up and hopefully in the coming races, coming weekends, we can be really strong.”

However that doesn't change the reality that Perez' accident coupled with a poor performance form his normally rock-solid team mate Max Verstappen has put Red Bull in real trouble in the constructors championship.

“It’s a disaster for the championship," Perez admitted. "For both of us to end a weekend like this where we definitely had a lot more on the table. It’s a bit of a disaster."

It was the third incident of the weekend between the pair to go to the stewards for review, prompting race winner Piastri to quip that today's accident meant that “they finished the job!”

The stewards concluded that it “to be a racing incident with neither driver being predominantly at fault, and take no further action.”

In more detail, after reviewing telemetry and video evidence, they said that "Sainz was on or close to his normal racing line, which forms a slight angle away from the right hand wall.

“From the exit to the point of contact he moved approximately one car width further away from the wall, they continued. “Perez moved approximately half a car width further away from the same wall, being more parallel to the right hand wall.

“It was thus apparent that while ahead, and having the right to drive his line, Sainz did move slightly towards a car that he had limited vision of," the stewards acknowledged.

“At the same time there was nothing unusual about Perez’ line, but he could have done more to avoid the car that he had a better view of.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner still felt that Sainz was to blame for the accident. "I was just looking at the replay and you can see Carlos start to drift across the circuit," he told Sky Sports F1

"It looked like Carlos drifted to the left hand side of the track and there was contact which caused a huge amount of damage.

"A disappointing end to the race and a very unlucky one for Checo; he was in a position to win that race today and it is unfortunate that we weren’t able to achieve that.

"Importantly both drivers are ok but it has destroyed the race for Checo today, cost us a lot of damage and obviously vital points in the constructors’ championship, so we are very disappointed."

His counterpart at Ferrari, Frederic Vasseur, naturally saw it completely differently. "They were side by side at the start of the straight leading to turn 3 and they both wanted to keep in Charles’ slipstream.

"It seems to me that Checo had plenty of space on his left hand side and did not move at all, while Carlos had no room on his right hand side."

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