The Baku stewards have decided to take no further action over today's incident involving Sergio Perez and Carlos Sainz as they battled for second.

The stewards heard from both drivers and their team representatives in addition to reviewing positioning/marshalling system data, video, and in-car video evidence.

Sainz and Perez made contact and crashed shortly after Turn 2 on lap 50 in a situation where a small touch had significant consequences.

The stewards reviewed how the incident occurred, not the consequence.

Sainz passed Perez after Turn 1 and was completely ahead at the apex of Turn 2.

With a compromised exit by Sainz, Perez pulled to the inside of the Ferrari, with the Spaniard admitting that he was aware of the Red Bull to his inside.

Perez, being slightly behind, was in a better position to see the relative location of the cars. But as the two cars approached the wall on the right at the exit of Turn 2, they were about 1 metre apart.

From this point and throughout the incident, neither driver steered erratically, and indeed both kept their steering very neutral.

The stewards checked the driving line of the drivers on pervious laps. Sainz was on or close to his normal racing line, which forms a slight angle away from the right hand wall. From the exit to the point of contact he moved approximately one car width further away from the wall. Perez moved approximately half a car width further away from the same wall, being more parallel to the right hand wall.

It was thus apparent that while ahead, and having the right to drive his line, Sainz did move slightly towards a car that he had limited vision of. At the same time, there was nothing unusual about Perez' line, but he could have done more to avoid the car that he had better view of.

In conclusion, the stewards deemed this to be a racing incident with neither driver being predominantly at fault, and opted to take no further action.

"I did my normal racing line," said Sainz in the moments after the race. "I didn't do any strange manoeuver or anything. And for some reason that I still don't understand, we collided and yeah, I think he had plenty of space to the left.

"I do my normal racing line and the line that we all do in every lap of this track," he added, "exit in Turn 2, we always drift a bit towards the left, but without doing any weird or erratic manoeuvre.

"Charles in front of me is going to the left also, I'm just following his slipstream obviously, and I don't know, Checo I think decides not to give in any kind of movement or space, but it's too early to say."

"I was just looking at the replay," said Christian Horner ahead of the stewards decision, 2and you can see Carlos start to drift across the circuit. So, very disappointing, he should at very least have been on the podium today.

"It has destroyed the race for Checo today," he added, "cost us a lot of damage and obviously vital points in the constructors' championship."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by ian_w, 16/09/2024 10:49

"As reported elsewhere, "Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko says that the RB line-up will be revealed after next week's Singapore Grand Prix", let's see if Liam Lawson gets the seat alongside Yuki and Ricciardo ends up back in the seat beside Max! A costly misjudgement for Checo.

BTW, onboard video from Perez shows he slightly adjusted the wheel left twice. A third time would have put him clear and avoided all this wreckage."

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2. Posted by ian_w, 16/09/2024 10:28

"While the stewards may have classified this as a racing incident, it is quite clear Perez had a brain fart.

According to the stewards, Sainz was a) following LeClerc's slipstream, b) following his normal driving line which is a car width''s drift left along that straight, c) his onboard showed no change in the steering upon exiting the corner and d) was ahead by more than half a car lemgth so had the road.

Meanwhile, Perez was a) behind Sainz so knew exactly where Sainz was going, b) had plenty of time and room to move left, but chose move at a rate less than 1/2 car width left and thus chose to take no evading action.

More importantly, Checo had the opportunity to finish 4th and take his best and badly needed finish in 11 races and still had two more laps to best him and get 3rd and more points. Instead he put himself in a position to take his 4th DNF of the season and drop RB out out first rather than redeeming his reputation. That is where he is at fault/fart.

As much I love Karun's total recall of races and excellent analytic eyeballs, both he, Jacques and Christian did not have the insight that Carlos took his normal line and thus was not "crowding" even though slightly moving left. Maybe Ant would have noticed the lines, but probably not.

I'm sure Marko will be chewing Checo up soon enough, let's just see if he does not get spit out from RB at season's end."

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3. Posted by Pavlo, 16/09/2024 9:43

"@kenji - since when is the driver in front not allowed to chose the line? If Sainz wanted to follow slipstream of Leclerc, and didn‘t move to abruptly (and he didn’t), I see no problem with this.
Checo was 100% under control, and could have easily avoided the crash. One can argue if he is obliged to avoid, but as a racing driver to see what is going to happen and finishing the race in the wall instead of finishing and maybe even fighting further for the place - he just failed. Especially considering how much it costs a team in the fight with not-Ferrari."

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4. Posted by kenji, 16/09/2024 4:44

"Same footage with different viewpoints. What I saw appeared to be a definite move to the left by Sainz. This was replicated in replays on the 'Skypad' by Chanduk. To me it looked as though Sainz was totally to blame. Find it hard to accept that it was considered a racing incident. Then again the FIA have far better material upon which to rely on when considering any incidents."

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5. Posted by ffracer, 15/09/2024 22:46

"I really like both drivers as they each shown on multiple occasions that they have engage in terrific street fighting... and Perez let us down. The right penalty meted out (not) for what happened here... although I wish there were more words for Perez. He had more vision of both cars, could have allowed some racing room and both could have continued to some great drafting and overtaking. Also, one thing not mentioned is that this street course has a wall on the perimeter that you need to get away from so your car isn't susceptible to touching or continue funneling the hot air off the concrete walls... together with the 46°C heat and the blinding setting sun, Perez could have given some room. Disappointed with the avoidable carnage. My humble 2 pence..."

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6. Posted by Pavlo, 15/09/2024 21:43

"@Tom2681 - Perez could and must have avoided the accident, he saw Perez moving, was behind, had enough space. He was obliged to move.
Sainz was not turning at all, he was just driving straight line (ok, in the left direction, but straight), as a driver in front has a full right to chose the line (e.g. to get a tow from another driver), was only obliged to leave one car width, what he clearly did."

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7. Posted by Tom2681, 15/09/2024 20:14

"50/50 in my book.
Maybe 55/45 Sainz but not enough to deserve any kind of penalty.
Sainz drifted a bit to the left (trying to get a tow from Leclerc?), but not aggressively.
Perez stayed perfectly straight, can't be blamed.
Racing incident."

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8. Posted by Batman, 15/09/2024 18:25

"Fortunately for the stewards, Magnussen was not on duty. Ther's no one to blame. The show can go on."

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9. Posted by Pavlo, 15/09/2024 17:33

"In addition, I just watched what Perez did 2 corners before - after overtaking Leclerc, moved to the left so that Leclerc had to move as well. Perez knows the driver in front can move, he happily does it himself, but when another driver does it to him even minimally, he suddenly starts criticizing and stewards support him."

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10. Posted by Pavlo, 15/09/2024 17:13

"I'm disappointed, really. Sainz drives a straight line (even if it very slightly goes to the left, it's straight), Perez sees him, sees the move, and just waits for the crash, not avoiding it. How on earth is it "racing incident"?
We saw this years drivers pushing others till the line and quite often over the line (and that would be sometimes not penalized), why suddenly Sainz is not allowed to cose a line and Perez is not obliged to move? "

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No further action over Perez/Sainz clash

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