Christian Horner Offers Candid Assessment of Max Verstappen’s Disappointing Weekend
SINGAPORE — Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz said they had cleared the air with no hard feelings after last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix collision and hoped for a good race in Singapore on Sunday (Sept 22).
The pair crashed out on the penultimate lap in Baku while fighting for third place, a collision that contributed to McLaren going 20 points clear in the championship.
“It was just wrong moves at the wrong time and I think in the end it’s just irrelevant at the moment who is to blame,” Perez told reporters on Thursday
Sainz said separately the pair sat awkwardly and sadly together for 20 minutes in the medical centre after the crash while hooked up to heart rate monitors.
“We were looking at each other and saying: ‘Mate, what the… happened there? And we were like: I don’t know. But I promise I didn’t do anything bad to you… I didn’t close you off. I didn’t do anything,’ said the Spaniard.
“We were having this dialogue and trying to analyse what happened.
It was a podium coming. In the end we kind of joked about it, so no hard feelings with each other.”
Perez said talk on social media that he had hit Sainz’s helmet or pushed the Ferrari driver’s head in the immediate aftermath of the crash were exaggerated.
“I was talking to him, I didn’t push his head. It looks worse on the video than it is. Carlos is one of my best mates in the drivers’ group,” said the Mexican.
