‘Don’t think Mercedes like us on outside of Turn 4’

Christian Horner joked that Mercedes do not like Red Bulls overtaking at Turn 4 after Sergio Perez and George Russell collided in the Austrian Grand Prix.

During the opening lap of the race, the Mexican was going for the overtake on Russell but was clipped and sent spinning into the gravel.

He was able to recover, driving his car out of the gravel and onto a slip road, but did so with a new hole on his sidepod and at the very back of the grid.

Perez immediately pitted but by Lap 25, the team decided it was a lost cause and retired the Mexican.

The incident bore a striking resemblance to two years ago when at the same corner, Lewis Hamilton touched Alex Albon and sent him spinning at a time when he looked to be on for the first podium of his career.

Speaking after the 2022 event, team boss Horner joked that he thought Mercedes did not like Red Bulls overtaking them on the outside of Turn 4.

LAP 1/71

Perez spins off into the Turn 4 gravel after contact with Russell.

The Mexican makes it back to the pits and switches to hard tyres. He returns to the track in last place.#AustrianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/rZG4aJnNoy

— Formula 1 (@F1) July 10, 2022

“I don’t think Mercedes like our cars going round the outside at Turn 4,” he said whilst speaking to Sky Sports F1. “It was a shame because Checo, you can see he’s ahead there and it’s almost a mirror image with Alex a couple years ago.

“There was so much damage. There was no chance for him to score any points so better to save the mileage.

“It’s a tricky corner there but you know, we’ve seen so many incidents on the outside. It’s just a shame that he wasn’t given more space, but it’s one of those things, we’ll bounce back in France.”

With Perez out, Red Bull’s sole focus became Max Verstappen and his battle with the two Ferraris but he was not able to hold off Charles Leclerc who took his first race win since the third round in Australia.

Horner highlighted increased tyre degradation as the cause behind Red Bull’s pace disadvantage.

“Very important points today. Ferrari, congratulations to them, they had a quicker car through the majority of the race and Max was coming back at the end there but our tyre degs were higher than halfway through the first stint and it was hard to combat that.

“It’s unlucky for them today even with Carlos but our pace at the end of the race, we still got the fastest lap, but we didn’t have the range that we had yesterday. That’s something…