For 49 of its 51 laps, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was a tense, enthralling affair that slowly built up to a boil as the race went on.
The two-way battle for the lead between Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc became a three-way fight with Sergio Perez putting the Ferrari driver under pressure.
Then, Carlos Sainz Jnr began to reel in the leading trio and eventually got within DRS range of Perez in third to add an extra dimension to the late battle.
Unfortunately, however, the race would end in tears for both Perez and Sainz as they clashed at the start of the penultimate lap, taking both drivers out of the race. The stewards investigated the incident but decided not to take any action. But were they right to, or should either driver have taken the blame?
How it happened
Entering the penultimate lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, lap 50, Perez attempted to pass Charles Leclerc into turn one for second place. Perez took the outside line as Leclerc defended, allowing Sainz to take a tighter line on the exit and pass the Red Bull.
Sainz then had a look to the outside of Leclerc at turn two, which compromised his exit onto the straight leading to turn three and allowed Perez to pull alongside him at the exit. As the two ran side-by-side together, with Perez’s front wing half way alongside the Ferrari when the two touched wheels, sending both Perez and Sainz into the wall on the left-hand side of the circuit.
The crash immediately put both cars out of the race and scattered debris across the straight, with Valtteri Bottas having to slow down and in avoidance and running over debris as a result. The Virtual Safety Car was eventually deployed and the race finished under VSC conditions at the end of the next lap.
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What they said
In the cars
FOM played clips of both drivers’ team radios on the world feed after the accident. Perez told race engineer Hugh Bird: “What the [censored by FOM]? Did you see what he did, man? What the [censored by FOM]? Does he crash or what? [Censored by FOM] idiot.”
Sainz was baffled by how he had ended up being out of the race. “What happened there?,” he asked. “What happened? I don’t get it.”
After the crash
Speaking after the race, Perez wondered if Sainz had drifted into him while trying to get a benefit from his team mate’s slipstream ahead.
“I felt that, exiting turn two, there was plenty of room between both cars, and within a…
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