By Haley Burns, Leah Johnston and Skye Reilly.
An epic battle between Ferrari and Red Bull brought a devastating end to both teams’ well-driven race during the Azerbaijan grand prix.
Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz’s major crash towards the end of the race happened when Perez had passed Charles Leclerc to go second going into lap 50 out 51.
But, he was immediately re-passed by the Monegasque with Sainz then opportunistically poaching third place off Perez.
Carlos Sainz stated in an interview “I was attacking Charles into turn two and Checo (Perez) was on my left. We normally do a slight drift forwards to the left into the long straight, which I did like every other lap and suddenly for some reason, I don’t understand, Checo and I collided which is unfortunate and also very disappointing.”
On the team radio after the incident Perez reacted by naming Carlos “an idiot” but after calming down and going into the media pen.
Speaking afterwards, Perez said: “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 with each other.” After reviewing the incident, the stewards ruled that no further action was necessary.
Perez went on “it was very unfortunate it all happened so quickly, I think Carlos was trying to follow the row from Charles as he went to the inside and that really made things hard.”
Christian Horner, Redbull’s Team Principal was not as forgiving: “It destroyed the race for Checo. It did a lot of damage and cost us vital points in the constructor’s championship.”
The Baku race will spark some controversy surrounding the debate on who was really at fault and who is to blame for Red bull’s loss in the constructor’s championship.
Oscar Pistori won it for McLaren and closed the gap on title rival Max Verstappen to 59 points. You can read more about his win via our other article covering the race by clicking here. Next stop – Singapore this coming weekend.
