Pink Bull workforce principal Christian Horner says Sergio Perez had the tempo to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier than being taken out of the race in a crash with Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap.
Perez had been battling Charles Leclerc for second place (pictured) when he grew to become tangled in a duel with Sainz, who was closing in on a podium end with brisker tires within the remaining phases of the race.
Sainz slipped previous Perez on the first flip however missed the apex at Flip 2, opening the door to the Mexican, who obtained a greater exit to pull the Spaniard aspect by aspect right down to Flip 3. However the two made heavy contact midway down the straight that ended with each vehicles clattering into the boundaries, forcing a digital security automotive that successfully ended the grand prix.
The crash was deemed a racing incident in a post-session investigation, with the stewards declaring that whereas Sainz was drifting in the direction of the center of the observe, Perez may have completed extra to keep away from the collision.
“It’s massively irritating,” Horner stated earlier than the stewards issued their ruling. “I’ve simply watched the incident a number of instances and you may fairly clearly see Carlos — for those who take the wall as a reference and the white line on the right-hand aspect of the observe — look in his mirror and simply drift to the left, realizing that he was there, and Checo doesn’t transfer left or proper. Massively irritating to lose that.”
Horner was significantly dissatisfied that Perez’s first robust race in months went unrewarded.
“I believed he was tremendous,” he stated. “It’s irritating as a result of Checo actually ought to’ve been on the rostrum on the very least in third place, most likely second.
“Truly, he may’ve received that race had he not misplaced quite a lot of time behind Alex Albon initially after which Lando [Norris] whereas he was on new tires and Oscar was nonetheless out on the outdated tires.”
McLaren’s workforce techniques paid profitable dividends. Whereas Perez was the primary of the main trio to pit for what ought to have been a robust undercut, he occurred to rejoin the observe behind Norris, who began in fifteenth and was partaking in a protracted restoration drive.
Norris was requested to sluggish Perez to provide Piastri an additional lap’s tire offset, and the Briton duly obliged with some intelligent defensive driving by the fortress part that allowed his teammate to rejoin from his pit cease fractionally forward of Perez.
“Lando backed him up, which allowed Oscar to maintain observe place, and I feel with out that we might’ve been forward of Oscar and he would’ve handed Leclerc and he would’ve been nice,” Horner stated.
“I believed Checo had a really robust weekend and he had nice tempo all through that race. To sit down on the tail of that for the complete grand prix distance — he was on the tempo all through the weekend.
“He was demonstrating race-winning efficiency immediately. After all it’s a observe that he’s at all times excelled at, however I feel we’ve understood just a few issues with the automotive, and it was good to see actually Checo’s automotive in rivalry for the win all through the race. It’s only a nice disgrace for him to not have capitalized with a podium, which has been expensive in constructors factors and in crash injury.”
Whereas the factors loss from the crash wasn’t the distinction between Pink Bull retaining and shedding the constructors championship lead, it did permit McLaren to open a wholesome 20-point benefit in a single fell swoop relatively than the extra modest margin it was set to assert with Piastri in third.
“We’re pushing exhausting,” Horner stated. “We’re not defending, we’re chasing, so it modifications the dynamic once more. We’re simply going to throw all the things at it.”
