Purple Bull group principal Christian Horner says Sergio Perez had the tempo to win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix earlier than being taken out of the race in a crash with Carlos Sainz on the penultimate lap.
Perez had been battling Charles Leclerc for second place (pictured) when he turned tangled in a duel with Sainz, who was closing in on a podium end with brisker tires within the ultimate levels of the race.
Sainz slipped previous Perez on the first flip however missed the apex at Flip 2, opening the door to the Mexican, who acquired a greater exit to tug the Spaniard facet by facet all the way down to Flip 3. However the two made heavy contact midway down the straight that ended with each automobiles clattering into the boundaries, forcing a digital security automobile that successfully ended the grand prix.
The crash was deemed a racing incident in a post-session investigation, with the stewards declaring that whereas Sainz was drifting in the direction of the center of the observe, Perez might have carried out extra to keep away from the collision.
“It’s massively irritating,” Horner stated earlier than the stewards issued their ruling. “I’ve simply watched the incident a number of instances and you’ll fairly clearly see Carlos — when you take the wall as a reference and the white line on the right-hand facet of the observe — look in his mirror and simply drift to the left, figuring out that he was there, and Checo doesn’t transfer left or proper. Vastly irritating to lose that.”
Horner was notably dissatisfied that Perez’s first sturdy race in months went unrewarded.
“I believed he was tremendous,” he stated. “It’s irritating as a result of Checo definitely ought to’ve been on the rostrum on the very least in third place, most likely second.
“Really, he might’ve received that race had he not misplaced quite a lot of time behind Alex Albon initially after which Lando [Norris] whereas he was on new tires and Oscar was nonetheless out on the previous tires.”
McLaren’s group techniques paid profitable dividends. Whereas Perez was the primary of the main trio to pit for what ought to have been a strong undercut, he occurred to rejoin the observe behind Norris, who began in fifteenth and was partaking in an extended restoration drive.
Norris was requested to sluggish Perez to provide Piastri an additional lap’s tire offset, and the Briton duly obliged with some intelligent defensive driving via the citadel part that allowed his teammate to rejoin from his pit cease fractionally forward of Perez.
“Lando backed him up, which allowed Oscar to maintain observe place, and I feel with out that we might’ve been forward of Oscar and he would’ve handed Leclerc and he would’ve been high quality,” Horner stated.
“I believed Checo had a really sturdy weekend and he had nice tempo all through that race. To sit down on the tail of that for the whole grand prix distance — he was on the tempo all through the weekend.
“He was demonstrating race-winning efficiency right now. In fact it’s a observe that he’s at all times excelled at, however I feel we’ve understood just a few issues with the automobile, and it was good to see definitely Checo’s automobile in rivalry for the win all through the race. It’s only a nice disgrace for him to not have capitalized with a podium, which has been expensive in constructors factors and in crash harm.”
Whereas the factors loss from the crash wasn’t the distinction between Purple Bull retaining and dropping the constructors championship lead, it did permit McLaren to open a wholesome 20-point benefit in a single fell swoop quite than the extra modest margin it was set to say with Piastri in third.
“We’re pushing arduous,” Horner stated. “We’re no longer defending, we’re chasing, so it modifications the dynamic once more. We’re simply going to throw the whole lot at it.”
