Carlos Sainz has revealed he and Sergio Perez endured an “awkward” meeting after their penultimate lap collision in last weekend’s Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Perez was in a position to challenge Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari for second place when he was compromised at Turn 1 and Sainz managed to sneak through on the exit.
But as Sainz was caught up behind his team-mate at Turn 2, Perez was able to cut underneath the Spaniard and come alongside his Ferrari on the approach to Turn 3.
However, the pair came to blows and ended up in the barriers on the back straight, cementing Leclerc’s podium and handing third place to Mercedes’ George Russell.
But while the two were at odds over who was to blame as the stewards opted not to take action, Sainz revealed that a discussion in the medical centre cleared the air.
“We were awkwardly sat next to each other for 20 minutes in the medical centre, both with a heart rate monitor and controlling our vitals,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
“We were looking at each other and saying: ‘mate, what the f**k happened there?
“And we were like, ‘I don’t know. But I promise I didn’t do anything bad to you, Checo. I didn’t close you off. I didn’t do anything’.
“We were having this dialogue and trying to analyse what happened.
“And suddenly, after these 20 minutes, we were like: this sport is so s**t sometimes. How can we be here and missing out on the podium? We had the podium.
“Charles was dying on his Hard tyres out there. We were probably both going to have a go at him.
“And we were both sitting there like, ‘how on earth did we manage to not finish in the podium?’
“It was a podium coming – and in the end we kind of joked about it, so no hard feelings with each other.”
Perez also commented on the subject, agreeing that it was unfortunate that both men proceeded to miss out on some much-needed points.
“Once we took our helmets off, we realised that we both screwed it up, that finishing a race like that was really disappointing,” Perez added.
“We were in the medical centre, and they were checking us out, we were both fine and we both wanted to leave as soon as possible because we were both super, super sad with the outcome.
“It is behind us and I really hope we can both have a really strong end to the season.
“I think it was just wrong moves at the wrong time and I think in the end it is just irrelevant at the moment, who is to blame.
“We both ended up with zero points, damaging our teams a lot and it was something we were having a chat, and we were thinking the amount of damage for us, with especially Charles struggling so much, that in the end we should have been on the podium, but we were not. But it is irrelevant now, let’s turn the page.”
Perez also addressed criticism from some circles that, in the immediate aftermath of the crash, it appeared that he pushed Sainz’s crash helmet after approaching him whilst he was still sat inside his Ferrari.
“I was chatting to Carlos as he was looking down and I was talking to him, I didn’t push his head,” explained Perez.
“It looks worse on the video than it is, obviously Carlos is one of my best mates in the drivers’ group so the last person I would like to have come together with is Carlos.
“We have turned the page and hopefully both of us can have a tremendous race.
“Social media can sometimes be very toxic in that regard, so it is best to stay away because most of the time people don’t know exactly the truth and the truth is we were both extremely disappointed.
“There are things [posted] like I did hit his head or any of the other comments I’ve seen, I have nothing to say about it, Carlos knows exactly and we actually walked together after it to the paddock and we were both just super disappointed with ourselves after such a race that we finished our weekends like that.”
