SINGAPORE — Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz cleared the air following their crash at last week's Azerbaijan Grand Prix in an “awkward” 20-minute conversation as they sat next to each other in the circuit's medical centre.
The pair tangled while battling for third place on the penultimate lap, with the front-right tyre of Perez's car making contact with the right-rear of Sainz and sending the Ferrari car across the path of the Red Bull and into the wall.
Both drivers blamed each other afterwards, but the stewards ruled it was a racing incident.
After any accident, drivers go to the medical centre for precautionary tests, and Sainz said this provided an opportunity to talk it over and for both of them to reflect on how cruel the sport can be.
“We sat next to each other awkwardly for 20 minutes in the medical centre, both wearing a heart rate monitor and having our vitals checked,” Sainz said ahead of this week's Singapore Grand Prix.
“We looked at each other and said, 'Dude, what the hell happened there?' And we said, 'I don't know. But I promise you I didn't do anything bad to you, Checo. I didn't shut you down. I didn't do anything.'”
“We were having this dialogue and trying to analyse what had happened. And suddenly, after these 20 minutes, we thought… this sport is shit sometimes! How can we be here and miss out on the podium? We already had the podium.
“Charles was dying on his hard tyres. We were probably both going for it. And we were both thinking, 'How the hell did we manage not to finish on the podium?'
“The podium was coming up, and at the end we joked a bit about it, so we didn't hold any grudges.”
Pérez added: “Once we took off our helmets we realised that we had screwed up, that finishing a race like that was a real disappointment. We were at the medical centre, they were doing the two examinations and we were all fine. We both wanted to leave as soon as possible because we were very sad about the result.”
After the accident, videos circulated on social media showing what happened immediately after the accident.
Perez was the first to get out of his car and walked over to Sainz's car to protest with him; footage shows him apparently slapping or hitting the top of Sainz's head as he did so.
Both said the incident was completely exaggerated.
“I was talking to him, I didn't push his head,” Perez said. “On the video it looks worse than it is; obviously Carlos is one of my best friends in the drivers' group. So the last person I would have wanted to be with is Carlos. But we've moved on and I hope we can both have a tremendous race (in Singapore).
Sainz also played down the moment.
“I don't really remember. Honestly speaking, I couldn't remember if he touched my helmet anyway,” Sainz said.
“I always take my time getting out of the car because I need to fasten my seatbelt, headrest (while some drivers prefer not to), drink tube, radio. I always take my time and I think he took advantage of that time to approach me agitatedly and say something; by the way, I couldn't hear what he said!”
