Carlos Sainz has revealed how he spent an “awkward” 20 minutes in the medical centre with Sergio Perez moments after their penultimate-lap crash in Formula 1’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The pair were duelling for a place on the podium in Baku before their coming together after Turn 2 ended with both drivers in the wall.
Sainz had been attempting to pass Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, who was struggling with his rear tyres, while Perez was aiming for a strong race having been on a run of poor form in his Red Bull.
The stewards ultimately deemed it was a racing incident and Sainz set the scene in the medical centre as the duo underwent examination.
“We were awkwardly sat next to each other for 20 minutes in the medical centre, both with a heart rate monitor and controlling our vitals,” said Sainz.
“We were looking at each other and saying: ‘mate, what the f*** happened there? And we were like: I don’t know. But I promise I didn’t do anything bad to you, Checo. I didn’t close you off. I didn’t do anything’.
“We were having this dialogue and trying to analyse what happened. And suddenly, after these 20 minutes, we were like: this sport is so shit sometimes. How can we be here and missing out on the podium? We had the podium.
“Charles was dying on his hard tyres out there. We were probably both going to have a go at him. And we were both sitting there like: ‘how on earth did we manage to not finish in the podium?’
“It was a podium coming – and in the end we kind of joked about it, so no hard feelings with each other.”
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Perez echoed the sentiment of the Spaniard as the two drivers rued the collision that cost them both an impressive haul of points.
“Once we took our helmets off, we realised that we both screwed it up, that finishing a race like that was really disappointing,” Perez said.
“We were in the medical centre, and they were checking us out, we were both fine and we both wanted to leave as soon as possible because we were both super, super sad with the outcome.
“It is behind us and I really hope we can both have a really strong end to the season.
“I think it was just wrong moves at the wrong time and I think in the end it is just irrelevant at the moment, who is to blame.
“We both ended up with zero points, damaging our teams a lot and it was something we were having a chat, and we were thinking the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Motorsport.com – Formula 1 – Stories…