But out of Turn 2 and on the curved straight down to Turn 3, Sainz and Perez made contact, Sainz appearing to drift over into the path of the Red Bull – with the Spaniard giving his version of events after the race.
“I was attacking Charles into Turn 2 and then I exited Turn 2,” he explained. “Checo [Perez] was on my left.
We normally do a slight drift towards the left into the long straight, which I did like every other lap, and suddenly for some reason I don’t understand, Checo and I collided, which is unfortunate and also very disappointing.
“We’ve spoken already,” Sainz added. “[But] we need to analyse. I’m not someone who wants to put blame on either an excuse or put blame on another driver. It’s racing, everything happens super-fast.
“My feeling today is honestly I did nothing wrong, I didn’t do any erratic manoeuvre, put him against the wall or anything like that.
We were just, like every other lap, drifting a bit, a tiny, tiny little bit towards the left because that’s where the racing line is and we just touched.
Perez reacted furiously over team radio after the incident, labelling Sainz “an idiot”.
But the Mexican was more measured as he entered the media pen, having spoken to the stewards after both drivers were summoned to explain their parts in the crash – which forced a Virtual Safety Car, ensuring McLaren’s Oscar Piastri of a second career win, as he held off the sister Ferrari of Charles Leclerc.
“I felt that exiting Turn 2, there was plenty of room between both cars, and within a metre or two, we ended up making contact,” said Perez, ahead of the stewards’ ruling that no further action was necessary.
“It’s very unfortunate. It all happened so quickly.
I think Carlos was trying to follow the tow from Charles as he went to the inside and that really made things really hard.”
