The Red Bull Ring weekend was one to forget for Sergio Perez. The Mexican driver, in fact, suffered from a poor feeling with his car since Friday and already struggled a lot in FP1 unlike Max Verstappen.
In qualifying, then, Perez was the protagonist of a wide in curve 8 during the last attempt in Q2 which caused a lot of discussion. The panel of commissioners, in fact, decided on the moment not to cancel the time of the Red Bull driver who was thus able to pass the turn and take part in the Q3 closed with the fourth time trial.
Only late in the Austrian evening did the race direction decide which not only established the cancellation of the times obtained in Q3, but also of the reference achieved in Q2, thus forcing Perez to start the Sprint Race from thirteenth position.
Despite this, Sergio managed to recover during the 23 laps of the short race to climb up to fourth place and thus guarantee himself the right to start from the second row for Sunday’s race.
The podium expectations, however, vanished after a few corners. Perez, in fact, was immediately attacked by George Russell and in an attempt to overtake the Mercedes driver on the outside of turn 4, the two made contact.
To have the worst was the driver of the Red Bull finished in gravel with the car damaged. Once back on track, Perez was called to the pits to allow the mechanics to fix the damage on his RB18, but a few laps after the Red Bull wall he again called the Mexican into the pit lane for the definitive retirement.
“It’s very frustrating. I think it was important not to have accidents during the first lap. It was a real shame that our race ended so soon” declared a disconsolate Perez who at the end of the Austrian appointment was overtaken in the standings by Charles Leclerc .
“I had the whole race ahead of me and I thought I had good opportunities. The car took a lot of damage and we weren’t going anywhere. For this reason we had to withdraw “.
The contact with Russell occurred during the first lap was immediately finished under the magnifying glass of the commissioners who decided to penalize the Mercedes driver with 5 seconds, holding him solely responsible for the accident.
Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB18, George Russell, Mercedes W13, Kevin Magnussen, Haas VF-22, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13
Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images
Perez agreed with the vision of the college of commissioners and stressed that the whole fault of the incident is to be blamed on Russell, the guilty of not having given him the necessary space to avoid the clash.
“To tell the truth, there was nothing I could have done other than going straight into the gravel to make sure he had a clear path.”
“I gave him enough space and it was up to him to control the car. I was clearly in front, I don’t know what else to say. I had the position and it was up to him to avoid contact.”
“I gave George all the space I could on the first lap, there was enough room for both cars not to crash and unfortunately we ended up colliding. I don’t know what else I could have done. “
As mentioned, the zero in the standings made the Mexican Red Bull relegate to third position in the drivers’ standings behind a Leclerc who was once again the first challenger of Max Verstappen after a difficult period.
Perez admitted that Ferrari was the reference car in Austria, but he wanted to underline how this season the values on the field between the car from Maranello and Red Bull are very similar.
“Today has damaged us in both championships and we hope to be able to catch up.”
“It has been like this all season: sometimes we are faster and sometimes the Ferraris are. We are very close, but today Ferrari was clearly the fastest car. Now we have to look ahead; the season is long and we hope to be able to return. stronger in the coming weekends “.
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