A row has erupted between Force India’s Sergio Perez and Williams engineer Rob Smedley after an incident between Perez and Felipe Massa on the final lap of the Canadian Grand Prix.
Smedley says the Mexican should have retired from the race whilst running second because it was clear that he had a serious issue which could – and eventually did – lead to a massive crash.
“Perez braked very, very early. Either he jinked his car to the left, or because of brake problems it jinked to the left, I don’t know.
“[He was] talking about having no rear brakes. So they told him to carry on if he could, and if you can’t then to pit, which seems to me to be a fairly f***ing terminal problem to be honest.
“Why you leave a car out when you’ve got that sort of problem is beyond me.”
Smedley highlighted Lewis Hamilton’s decision to do the same when he realised his brakes had gone.
“Lewis Hamilton, because of his problems – brakes again – has to stop the car. That’s a guy fighting for the world championship and he stops.
“I’m a bit peeved to say the least that this has happened. We were very lucky not to have someone seriously hurt.”
In comments released by Force India on Monday afternoon, Perez hit back at Smedley who he described as “misguided”.
“I’m not happy about comments saying we should have retired the car,” he said. “It was perfectly driveable with just some adjustments and we showed it up until the moment in which we were taken out.
“Other cars out there had been in similar conditions for way longer than us and they finished the race without problems.
“If someone thinks you can keep two Red Bulls behind for as long as we did with so-called ‘terminal’ problems, they are clearly misguided.”
