Whilst the Montreal Stewards might feel the matter is settled, the two drivers involved in the accident that ended the Canadian Grand Prix continues to see it differently.

Clearly furious that he has been hit with a five-place grid penalty for the forthcoming Austrian Grand Prix, having been adjudged as causing the horrific accident with Felipe Massa which brought out the red flag, this afternoon Sergio Perez took to Twitter.

"They say a picture is worth a thousand words... who crashes into whom?" tweeted his team, following it up with a comment from its Mexican driver who looked destined to leave Canada with a serious points haul.

"I watched several replays of the incident and I can't help but notice how Felipe turns right just before he hits me" says @SChecoPerez, the Silverstone-based outfit tweeted. Adding, "If someone thinks you can keep two Red Bulls behind for as long as we did with so-called 'terminal' problems, they are clearly misguided."

This refers to the claim from Williams that the Mexican had a terminal brake issue. However, whilst Force India admits there was an issue, it insists Perez had been able to do a reset which solved it.

"I spoke to him at the medical centre," said Massa. "I was so disappointed with him. I said he needs to learn. I wanted him to put himself in my place because I had a huge crash. It's not the first time he turned into somebody under braking. He has done this many times but he didn't say anything. He just turned and left."

The Brazilian was also critical of the five-place grid penalty Perez received.

"I hope he learns because we were doing 300 kph at the time. It was dangerous and we could have had a very serious accident, so for me the penalty is not enough. We could have crashed into Vettel."

Indeed, on-board footage from Vettel's car shows just how close he came to being taken out by the Williams as it careered towards the barriers.

Williams Head of Vehicle Performance, Rob Smedley, was equally scathing of the incident dismissing Force India's claims concerning Perez' brakes.

"We showed them evidence from the radio transcript, which I think was around lap 67, where he said 'I've no rear brakes' I think was his comment. They said 'if you can carry on, carry on, and if you can't, pit'. That says to me it's a fairly terminal problem.

"Why you leave a car out when you've that sort of problem is beyond me," he added. "You saw two teams, one of which was ours, knowing when to call it quits."

"With Valtteri we had to tell him to back off saving brakes and saving engine, critically brakes because it can be dangerous. We had to back him off and we had to lose points. That's life."

Chris Balfe

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by blackdog, 12/06/2014 15:53

"Elsewhere we see Patrick Head saying that Smedley's comments about the incident "Were a bit over the top!"
Patrick's thoughts on any given subject are always worth listening to, he being of the old school racing fraternity. He knows what he is talking about which is more than can be said for some here.
Perez was probably hoping to out brake Vettel into the left hander and only meters away from turning left for the apex. He was on the racing line and racing for position, so jinks left slightly, under braking and getting ready for the turn.
Massa arrives at huge speed compared to Perez and Vettel, hoping to barge his way through. He had plenty of room to his left but decided to jink right, leaving no room at all for Perez. Where did he think Perez was supposed to go? Did he think at all?Typical Massa brain fade. Both drivers were lucky to walk away and Vettel was extremely fortunate not to get Tboned in the bargain.
Lastly, Derek Daly, very nice fellow, I am sure, but the closest he ever came to a podium was when he passed it on his way to the toilets, so how is he qualified to be a race steward? There are a huge number of highly skilled ex-F1 pilots I can think of who would be more suitable for the task. At best, the crash was half Massa's fault, at the very least, I think he was reckless.
I hope Force India appeal in the strongest possible terms. The stewards got this completely wrong and I emailed Mr Whiting to say so."

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2. Posted by johnoneill2006, 11/06/2014 14:07

"We can all argue about who is to blame for the crash, but the simple fact is that Massa should not have been there in the first place. He should have been off down the road challenging Rosberg.

It was a truly awful last few laps that Massa drove, given the performance he had in that car from fresher tyres and Mercedes engine. Every lap he seemed to get the hairpin wrong, or get massive oversteer when putting the power down, or not using the DRS properly.

Surely the only reason to take on an experienced driver who is past his peak is because, when the results are there, the driver will deliver that result for you. Massa threw away a huge result for Williams. What a wasted opportunity."

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3. Posted by RDFox, 11/06/2014 12:53

"Personally, I'd say there's enough blame to go around. Over here in the States, we have a phrase that comes from NASCAR that perfectly sums up most racing crashes: "It was just one of them racin' deals." This means that either nobody was to blame, it was just a case of racing hard and something went wrong, or that both drivers bore a share of the blame. Felipe was being optimistic, yes, but at the same time, Perez didn't seem to make any effort to avoid running into him as he turned in. Was it a heart-stopping moment? Yes. Can it be blamed on one man? Well, obviously, the stewards thought so. But when you get right down to it, F1 is still *racing*, and it was a move for position--and possibly for the podium--on the final lap. Sometimes, you have to try to force the issue; both men were running for what would likely be their best finish of the entire season, and neither one wanted to concede the position to the other. Sometimes, that situation results in things going horribly wrong. So just one of them racin' deals, indeed.

As for Smedley, I again look at this from an American perspective, shaped by a mixture of endurance racing (where merely finishing the race is considered an honor) and NASCAR (where the points system encourages you to always find a way to patch up the car and finish the race so you can scoop up an extra point or two), and point out that, even if Perez had no rear brakes, he was in the last three laps, he was in contention for a podium and, even if he lost a couple positions before the finish, a big points day for a team that can't assume it will get points every race, and, most importantly, he still had FRONT brakes. That's enough to limp a car to the finish line when you're that close; I have NO problem with telling the driver that he should stay out if the problem isn't so bad that he can't safely deal with it. Smedley's argument seems to be that because of the problem, Perez was going to be forced to run at a reduced pace, and therefore needed to be retired. By that argument, then, shouldn't Schumacher have been ordered by Ferrari to retire the car after they determined that he had a cracked exhaust header in Barcelona back in 2004? But they didn't, and Michael managed to win that race..."

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4. Posted by dordaz, 11/06/2014 3:49

"Those who have raced understand clearly what happened, and Perez is right. Massa is a big whiner and has crashed so many times that he might be losing his mental brightnes."

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5. Posted by scf1fan, 10/06/2014 22:36

"I would say that Filipe was being very optimistic . . . He should have realized his closing speed was much higher than "usual" and upon two cars racing to boot; it was up to FM to make sure that he had enough room. (He wasn't being forced off the track.) I thought Perez was braking a bit early, (but not doing a double/blocking move - he had no obligation to get out of FMs way) and with any type of instability, a little wiggling should have been expected under those circumstances. With the overlap I saw, I'm not sure FM would have made it by if SP had been going in a perfectly straight line! I would have voted no penalty/racing incident. (Or at most a warning.)"

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6. Posted by Tommy Tipper, 10/06/2014 21:35

"I think that DC pointed out that Perez moved to the left - end of story"

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7. Posted by Darvi, 10/06/2014 14:31

"I think Smedley is being a bit sneaky. He's claiming that Force India should have withdrawn Perez's car and that Williams and Mercedes had similar issues and dealt with them. He went on to say that Hamilaton and Bottas had similar problems, but Lewis only stopped when it was clear that he couldn't stop the car and the aforementioned Mr Smedley didn't tell Bottas to stop, so Force India did nothing different to Mercedes or Williams.

Having looked at all the fottage again, Massa moves his steering wheel one way and Perez evr so slightly the other. But the fact remains that, had Massa left a sensible margin when trying to overtake, they would not of collided. From where I sit, there is no blame on Perez, at worst it can only be a racing incident IMO. I think Mechanical is spot on, it isn't what you do, but who you are....."

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8. Posted by Mechanical, 10/06/2014 12:27

"The awarding of a Penalty has as much to do with who your are as to what you did !"

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9. Posted by ESTMPRFT, 10/06/2014 12:09

"I agree with Hardliner. It's a racing incident. Stuff happens. F1 has become over officiated. Massa could have been more circumspect if he knew Perez had problems...."

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10. Posted by Darvi, 10/06/2014 6:01

"I was amazed that they penalised Perez, I thought Massa didn't leave enough space and, given that they suspected that he had brake problems, Massa probably should have expected Perez to brake slightly early. It was a shame for Williams, but the biggest shame (as a Williams supporter) was that Massa seemed to have a lot of performance when he closed on Vettel, but he made a hash of the hairpin before the straight three laps in a row which stoped him from being able to DRS his way past.

I've always supported Massa, but in my opinion, for someone with his experience he should be performing better."

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11. Posted by Hardliner, 09/06/2014 22:04

"Why must it always be someone's fault? Racing incident, quite costly, but no harm done, and maybe it'll teach them both a bit of respect"

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12. Posted by gturner38, 09/06/2014 21:04

"Looking at the overhead, I can understand how the stewards came to their conclusion. Perez is sitting about a half car width to the left of Vettel going through the right hand kink and seems to be following him toward the outside of the track before moving slightly left into the path of Massa just before the contact. Massa was going to leave the barest of gaps and with the front straight being less than straight I could see there being no penalty, but if either driver was going to get one, it would have to be Perez."

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13. Posted by marltoro, 09/06/2014 19:45

"After viewing several video versions of this I'm with Perez on this. From overhead there is a slight veer to the right from Massa just before he makes contact from the rear.
If that means the stewards got it wrong then they got wrong. But hey, they're only human..."

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