Christian Horner issues clear penalty verdict in last-gasp Perez v Sainz crash in Baku

Christian Horner has said he will be “disappointed” if Carlos Sainz isn’t penalised for the collision between him and Sergio Perez.

Perez was eliminated from a possible podium finish on the penultimate lap of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as he and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz made contact and ended up in the perimeter wall.

Christian Horner: Disappointing if Carlos Sainz isn’t penalised

Perez looked set for his first podium finish since the Chinese Grand Prix as he duelled with Ferrari‘s Charles Leclerc in the closing laps of the race.

A stern defence from Leclerc opened the door for Sainz to join the fight and get past Perez, who then set himself up for a drag race out of Turn 2 – a drag race he would likely have emerged ahead in, had the the two cars not made contact.

The FIA stewards are investigating the collision, and Red Bull team boss Christian Horner believes the Spanish driver is deserving of a potential grid penalty for next week’s Singapore Grand Prix.

“I would have expected it from what I’ve just seen. I would have expected, causing that kind of incident and collision, I’d be very disappointed if he weren’t to take some form of penalty,” Horner told media in Baku.

“It’s frustrating because Checo [Perez] certainly should have been on the podium, at the very least, in third place – probably second.

“I think he actually could have won that race, had it not been for losing a lot of time behind Alex Albon initially, and then Lando [Norris].

“Whilst Checo was on new tyres, and Oscar was still out on the old tyres, Lando backed him up, which allowed Oscar to keep track position.

“I think, without that, we would have been ahead of Oscar and he would have passed Leclerc, and he would have been fine. So hugely frustrating.”

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Explaining his perspective on the collision, Horner said he had watched the incident back on Sky F1’s paddock SkyPad and explained: “You can quite clearly see Carlos, if you take the wall as a reference in the white line on the right-hand side of the track, you see him look in his mirror and just drift to the left, knowing that [Checo] was there.

“Checo doesn’t move left or right so it’s hugely frustrating to lose that.

“If you look at the reference, you see him look in his mirror, he’s drifting left. There’s a white line on the right-hand side of the circuit. For Checo, there’s a dotted white line, and he’s smack on it.”

Asked whether a measurement of G-force for the hefty impact against the concrete wall had been taken, Horner said: “I don’t have the G-force, but it was a significant impact. So it’s three corners of the car – floor, bodywork, everything that you don’t want to have to fix when the cars are being freighted to Singapore.”

With Perez having produced the stronger race weekend of the two Red Bull drivers, hauling himself into contention for the win after a calm and methodical race, Horner was full of praise for the performance the Mexican driver has bounced back with after a tough run of form through the middle part of the season.

“I thought he was super. I thought Checo drove a very strong weekend, and he had great pace throughout that race,” he said.

“I mean, to sit on the tail of that for the entire Grand Prix distance, he was on the pace throughout the weekend, and it was just a great shame for him not to capitalised with a podium which has been costly in Constructors’ points and in crash damage.

“He was demonstrating race-winning performance there today. It’s a track he’s always excelled at, but I think we’ve understood a few things with the car. It was good to see, certainly, Checo’s car in contention for the win throughout the race.”

The loss of points for Red Bull, combined with McLaren’s victory, means the Woking-based team moves into the lead of the Constructors’ Championship with a 20-point advantage over Red Bull.

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