Criticism of Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez after Baku crash

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Helmut Marko has criticised Carlos Sainz after the late collision with Sergio Perez and blamed him for the accident on the penultimate lap in Baku. Both drivers had a good chance of making the podium in Azerbaijan when the fateful collision occurred on the penultimate lap.

Both accelerated out of Turn 2 when their wheels touched and both turned left into the wall. The race stewards classified the scene as a racing incident, but Red Bull's motorsport consultant Helmut Marko sees Sainz as the culprit.

“I see a rather abrupt movement to the left by Sainz, which then triggered this crash,” he said to Heaven and confirms his statements to ServusTVwhere he said Sainz drove into Perez's car “completely unmotivated”. “It was a straight, there was no reason to pull so abruptly to the left,” said the Austrian.

Team boss Christian Horner agrees: “I've just watched the replay and you can see that Carlos is starting to drift across the track. That's very disappointing,” said the Briton, who thinks that Perez deserved “a lot more” today.

Sainz defends himself: “Normal racing line”

Sainz himself defends his driving style from his point of view: “I drove my normal racing line, I didn't do any strange maneuvers or anything like that,” the Spaniard clarifies, saying that the drivers always steer a little to the left after Turn 2. “Charles [Leclerc] “in front of me is also pulling to the left, of course I am only following his slipstream,” said Sainz.

“I don't know, Checo will probably decide not to move or not to leave any space, but it's too early to say,” said the Ferrari driver, who had already spoken to Perez at the time of his statement but had not yet had time to look at the pictures again.

Perez himself tried to be diplomatic after the accident: “Of course I understand what Carlos was trying to do. He wanted to follow Charles' slipstream, but I was there and then everything happened very quickly,” said the Red Bull driver. “The way he was moving, he touched my right front tire pretty quickly.”

“I don't think he even noticed that I was there,” said the Mexican, lamenting the zero result: “We are both extremely frustrated that we ended the weekend like this for our teams. It's just a shame because at the exit of Turn 2 there was still a meter between our cars, but then a meter or two later we made contact.

Sainz: “That’s how it is in racing”

The incident was obviously annoying for both drivers and teams, as both had a good chance of a podium finish. Shortly before the accident, Perez had attacked second-placed Leclerc on the start-finish line, but Leclerc was able to defend himself hard on the inside lane.

The battle gave Sainz the opportunity to overtake Perez at Turn 1 and almost attack his teammates as well. Sainz had the outside lane at Turn 2 but backed off, which in turn gave Perez the opportunity to pull alongside Sainz with a better corner exit, “and for some reason I still don't understand, we collided,” says Sainz.

“I think he had a lot of room on the left side. I didn't make any strange moves, but that's racing,” he said. “Sometimes you go 48 laps without doing anything and then you have two or three laps left and things like this happen.”

Red Bull is annoyed: “If that happens to a beginner …”

Instead of a podium finish – it would have been Perez's first since April – both drivers finished with nothing. “It was completely unnecessary to provoke something like that two laps before the end,” said an angry Marko, whose Red Bull team lost the lead in the World Championship to McLaren after the race in Baku.

“Perez came out much better and of course he's not going to make way voluntarily,” he defends his driver. However, he doesn't want to take Perez out of the firing line completely: “I don't know how many Grands Prix they've both already done,” he shakes his head. “If something like that happens to a beginner, maybe… That cost us an incredible number of points.”

It looks similar HeavenExpert Ralf Schumacher, who takes both drivers to task: “I'm not saying against misery,” said the German, who believes that such an end so close to the end is not necessary for drivers with so much experience. “You just have to take the points.”

Could Perez have won?

“He should have been on the podium at least today,” Horner said, annoyed for Perez. “That ruined Checo's race today, caused us a lot of damage and of course cost us a lot of points in the constructors' championship.”

Horner is convinced that with a little more racing luck, Perez could even have won today. “Unfortunately, he lost a lot of time on his laps behind Albon, and then Lando caught up with him.” [Norris] Time, which made Oscar [Piastri] then had the track position. “Without that, he would have won the race today,” says Horner.

If it were up to him, Sainz would have deserved a sanction from the race management for his actions, but his Ferrari counterpart Frederic Vasseur countered the statement: “If Horner expects that for Carlos, then I expect a grid penalty for Checo,” said the Frenchman. “He still had quite a lot of space on the left side.”

This is what the race commissioners say

In the end, however, the race stewards made a peaceful decision and did not punish either driver. For them, the incident was simply a racing accident in which no one was primarily to blame. According to them, it was simply a situation “in which a small contact had significant consequences.”

The report states that although Sainz noticed that Perez was next to him, Perez was able to perceive the position of both vehicles better.

“As the two cars approached the right-hand wall at the exit of Turn 2, they were about one metre apart. From that point on and throughout the incident, neither driver steered uncontrollably, but both kept their steering very neutral,” said the commissioners, who also compared the lines on official laps.

“Sainz felt he was on or close to his normal racing line, which forms a slight angle away from the right-hand wall. From the exit to the point of contact he moved about a car width further away from the wall. Perez moved about half a car width further away from the same wall but was more parallel to the right-hand wall.

“It was also obvious that, although Sainz was ahead and had the right to take his line, he was moving slightly towards a car that he had only limited visibility,” the ruling continued. “At the same time, Perez's line was not unusual, but he could have done more to avoid the car that he had a better view of.”