There was drama everywhere in the Baku streets on Sunday within the Method 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
However maybe essentially the most dramatic second, apart from Oscar Piastri’s beautiful overtake of Charles Leclerc that opened the door for his second Grand Prix victory of the season? The late-lap incident between Carlos Sainz Jr. and Sergio Pérez. As the 2 had been battling for third behind Sainz’s Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, they got here collectively, and the ensuing collision knocked each drivers out of the race, and had the stewards summoning them for a post-race chat:
https://x.com/F1/standing/1835313933038526863
After a listening to, stewards termed the crash a “racing incident,” and took no additional motion:
The Stewards checked the driving line of the drivers on earlier laps. Sainz was on or near his regular racing line, which types a slight angle away from the right-hand wall. From the exit to the purpose of contact he transfer roughly one automobile width additional away from the wall. Perez moved roughly half a automobile width additional away from the identical wall, being extra parallel to the fitting hand wall.
It was thus obvious that whereas forward, and having the fitting to drive his line, Sainz did transfer barely in direction of a automobile that he had restricted imaginative and prescient of. On the identical time, there was nothing uncommon about Perez’ line, however he may have performed extra to keep away from the automobile that he had higher view of.
In conclusion, the Stewards deem this to be a racing incident with neither driver being predominantly at fault, and take no additional motion.
Following the race, each drivers talked with the official F1 channel in regards to the incident.
“I used to be attacking Charles into Flip 2 after which I exited Flip 2,” mentioned Sainz. “Checo [Pérez] was on my left. We usually do a slight drift in direction of the left into the lengthy straight, which I did like each different lap, and abruptly for some motive I don’t perceive, Checo and I collided, which is unlucky and in addition very disappointing.
“We’ve spoken already,” added the Ferrari. “[But] we have to analyze. I’m not somebody who needs to place blame on both an excuse or put blame on one other driver. It’s racing, all the pieces occurs super-fast.
“My feeling at present is actually I did nothing incorrect, I didn’t do any erratic manoeuvre, put him towards the wall or something like that. We had been simply, like each different lap, drifting a bit, a tiny, tiny little bit in direction of the left as a result of that’s the place the racing line is and we simply touched. It’s what it’s.”
As you would possibly count on, Pérez noticed issues barely in another way.“
I felt that exiting Flip 2, there was loads of room between each automobiles, and inside a meter or two, we ended up making contact,” mentioned Pérez after the race. “It’s very unlucky. All of it occurred so rapidly. I feel Carlos was attempting to observe the tow from Charles as he went to the within and that basically made issues actually laborious.”
The affect between the 2 was a bitter capsule for each groups to swallow, because it knocked each out of rivalry for a podium place. The bitterness may need existed extra on Purple Bull’s aspect of the storage, as Ferrari nonetheless noticed Leclerc on the rostrum with a second-place end.
For Purple Bull, they might solely soothe themselves with a P5 from Max Verstappen.