Carlos Sainz and “Checo” Perez The two drivers collided in the middle of the podium battle with two laps remaining in the race. F1 2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The collision in the middle of the straight sent both cars crashing violently into the wall, but luckily both drivers were able to escape uninjured.

It all happened in the middle of a battle for second place. Carlos Sainz was introduced with a young wheel and great pace, cutting the lead of the front group by a few seconds., He arrived at the wheel of “Checo” Pérez and Leclerc, two seconds behind the leader and winner Piastri.

So Carlos took advantage of the fact that a Mexican rider was about to pass Charles for second place. It was the Spaniard who overtook Pérez. He tried the same on Leclerc on the outside of Turn 2, but he was too open and had a worse exit from the turn. “Checo” saw his opportunity and fired off along the outside, inside trajectory of his natural racing line for better traction.

The two raced side by side but Sainz got ahead, the Spaniard picking up more speed and trying to follow Leclerc’s slipstream and his natural line in the area, going slightly to the left, as he did in every turn. However, the contents were in Czech. The wheels of the two cars touched.

For this reason, neither Carlos nor Pérez wanted to blame their rival, and the Spaniard was unable to understand the cause of the crash, which appeared to be a race incident. Sainz reiterated that he had not intended to shut Pérez out and that he had followed his usual policy, but said that the Mexican had not had time to react.

Carlos Sainz’s version

“First of all, I’m happy and calm to see that Checo and I are OK after the very hard impact with the concrete wall on the left side. And obviously I’m very upset, because I was having a very good race. Today is a circuit where I always struggle and in the last 20 or 30 laps I was the fastest on the track and made up for the time I lost with the stop and the last lap before the stop. I thought I could overtake relatively easily. I had more wheels than them.”

“First I passed Checo and then I attacked Charles. I had a bad exit from turn two and Checo and I ended up parallel.I followed the normal line that I do every lap on this circuit, which is to slowly go left, and Charles did the same. And, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, we touched each other. So there it was, nothing, I need to turn the page. “Here’s what the next race will be like.”.

“Today I was able to drive very fast on a difficult circuit for me and it felt good, but I also had the bitter feeling that I could have got on the podium.” There is zero point in this incident that I never did anything to defend myself against “Checo”, never took any aggressive action, never tried to drive him into a wall, never tried to defend myself in any way. And then, for some reason that I don’t understand, we touched each other.”.

“I have never even gone to defend myself against ‘Checo,’ nor have I taken any aggressive action, never tried to drive him into a wall, or at least tried to defend myself. And for some reason, I don’t, ‘Okay, we’ve touched each other.'”

Carlos Sainz

“I said on the radio, a little embarrassed. ‘What’s wrong? I wasn’t trying to defend myself or do anything weird or aggressive. And then all of a sudden there was contact. Racing stuff. There are days when things don’t go your way and I’m sure Checo didn’t mean for the accident to happen, but I don’t know what to say. You’re a bit short on words.”

Czech Perez’s version

“I came out of the corner with a lot of space between the two cars and then Charles went on the inside to try to follow my line and then Carlos tried to get in Charles’ slipstream but obviously I was there.” And obviously, he had the speed, so by staying closed, the impact was so quick. “We didn’t have time to react.”.

“Obviously, he had the speed and he kept closing so the impact was very quick. We didn’t have time to react.”

“Czech” Perez

“An incident during the race? Yes, maybe a bit of bad timing. Carlos was coming faster on the straight and he wanted to follow the slipstream but I was there so I don’t even have the room to react when he comes towards me and us. We had an unfortunate contact because the person I wanted this contact to happen to the most was Carlos and there are two laps left in the race but after a weekend like this this is an absolute disaster for both teams.”