The opinion of the F1 commissioners on the serious crash between Sainz and Perez – and our

The major podium crash between Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was classified by Formula 1 stewards as a “racing accident” for which both sides were partially blamed.

Both Perez's Red Bull team and Sainz's Ferrari team, as well as the two drivers involved, pointed the finger at the other side afterwards. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner even went so far as to say that he would be “very disappointed” if Sainz escaped a penalty.

But the race control panel, which includes three-time F1 Grand Prix winner Johnny Herbert this weekend, stressed that it had made its decision based on the “event” and not its “significant” consequences. Neither driver could bear the brunt of the blame, the panel said.

The two sides

Sainz and Perez collided on the penultimate lap of the race. They were put on a collision course because Sainz's teammate Charles Leclerc slowed down and the rear axle lost traction in front of them.

Leclerc defended his second place against Perez vigorously, allowing Sainz to overtake him on the exit of the first corner. However, in an attempt to attack Leclerc himself, Sainz came out too wide at the second corner, meaning that Perez's front tyres were just ahead of Sainz's rear tyres coming out of the corner, while the Mexican was on the inside.

As Sainz gradually moved away from the outside wall, the two cars came together but hit the left wall hard, putting both cars out of action.

“In my opinion, Carlos was too fast to follow Charles’s lead,” Perez told Sky Sports.

“It was just the wrong time, the wrong moment and the result was a massive accident.”

His team boss, Horner, was more definitive in his assessment, relying on footage that was played repeatedly in the paddock during Sky expert Karun Chandhok's analysis, and broadly agreed with Chandhok's assessment that the track markings showed Sainz had caused the accident.

“You can clearly see that Carlos… if you use the wall as a reference point and the white line on the right hand side of the track, you can see him looking in the rear view mirror and just drifting to the left,” Horner said.

“So… knowing that he [Perez] was there. And Checo isn't moving. Neither to the left nor to the right. So it's enormously frustrating to lose that.

“I would have expected, after what I have just seen, that he would cause such an incident, a collision – I would be very disappointed if he [Sainz] should not impose a penalty.”

Sainz, for his part, had not yet seen a replay of the race at the time of his appearance before the media, but stressed that he had simply followed his normal racing line.

“I didn't do any strange maneuver or anything, and for some reason I still don't understand, we collided,” he lamented. “I feel like he had a lot of space on the left. I didn't do any strange movement.”

“But I guess that's how it is in racing. Sometimes you do 48 laps without anything and then there are three or two laps left and things like that happen.

“I drove my normal racing line and the line we all drive every lap on this track. Coming out of Turn 2 we always drift a little bit to the left and without doing any weird or erratic maneuvers. Charles in front of me also goes to the left and of course just follows his slipstream. And I don't know, Checo decides not to allow any movement or space. But it's too early to say.”

And Horner's harsh words were answered with equally harsh words by Sainz's team boss Fred Vasseur.

“If Horner expects a great penalty for Carlos, I expect a great penalty for Checo,” he said, pointing out that Perez had “five metres” of space on the left.

The assessment of the race management

“This is a situation where a small contact had significant consequences,” the race stewards wrote about the accident.

“Sainz overtook Perez after Turn 1 and was completely ahead at the apex of Turn 2. After a compromised exit from Sainz, Perez moved to the inside.

“Sainz reported that he noticed Perez on his inside. Perez was a little further back and could see the relative position of the cars better. But as the two cars approached the right-hand wall on the exit of Turn 2, they were about a metre apart.

“From that point on and throughout the incident, neither driver steered erratically and, in fact, both kept their steering very neutral.”

The race stewards then confirmed Sainz's statement that he was “on or close to his normal racing line”, while Perez was driving “more parallel to the right-hand wall” (although they acknowledged this line as “nothing unusual”).

They said Sainz “had the right to take his line” – but also that he “drove slightly towards a car that he had limited visibility”. Taking Perez's side, they said he “could have done more to avoid the car that he had a better view of”.

So, although both drivers were deemed to have some degree of fault, neither was “primarily at fault” and therefore was not penalized.

Our opinion

It would have been difficult for the Formula 1 stewards to justify a different verdict based on general Formula 1 precedent, as the onboard images of both drivers clearly confirm (despite Horner and Perez's claims that they moved suddenly) that neither driver changed their steering angle significantly after the initial exit phase.

The hearing was scheduled for 5:30 p.m. local time, and the verdict was announced at 6:13 p.m. local time. By F1 standards, this is lightning-fast for an accident like this – but that was the nature of the accident.

A “racing accident” does not seem to be the right term for an apparently harmless accident in which two cars collide with plenty of room on either side. However, in the current context of Formula 1, there is no convincing argument for considering either side “primarily at fault”.

If the main motive for the stewards' punishment is to prevent repeat offenders, it could be argued that both drivers should have been punished. But that would not please the fans, the drivers or the decision-makers. And while consequences are not theoretically considered, it is also true that both Sainz and Perez have been sufficiently punished for what can best be described as a general negligence towards each other's races – and their own races too.