The fallout from the collision between the two Force India’s in Baku continues, with Sergio Perez again slamming his team-mate Esteban Ocon.
The Mexican saw a nearly two-year run without a retirement end in Azerbaijan after he was squeezed into the wall by the 20-year-old as the two fought for fourth place after the second Safety Car restart.
A lot of comments have been made about the incident since, with team owner Vijay Mallya hoping both drivers will now put the team first and COO Otmar Szafnauer claiming Ocon “needs to learn” from what took place, but ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, Perez remains very critical of the approach of the Frenchman.
“I think pretty much all the team-mates in the grid are free to race, obviously with respect to the other car and the other rival,” he said.
“In four years with Nico [Hülkenberg] we never had an issue, we were free to race, had big battles on track, as long as Esteban understand what racing means then that will be clear.”
It was the second consecutive race the two drivers had clashed on track and the seven-time F1 podium-sitter actually suggested Ocon’s actions could have been linked to what happened two weeks prior.
“I don’t know if he was angry or so with what happened in Canada but the team’s point of view is in Canada we were free to race,” Perez claimed.
“What happened in Baku was just totally unacceptable from the team’s point of view, it was the feedback I got from the team.
“In all my experience I had with team-mates, the competition has been intense but never to that extent, never to just unnecessarily crashing into each other.
“I gave enough room, he was already ahead, there was no need at all to ruin our races, and it’s the team who pays the price, the team has said a lot since then and for me, there’s not a lot more to say.”
In response to that criticism, however, Ocon continued to claim he was not totally at fault and rejected any thought he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
“I’m not going to go into details, but there were things he did which were not right, there were things I did which were not right,” he said.
“So overall it makes it a racing incident and 50-50, so we’re both to blame for that.
“I’ve been finishing more than 40 races in single seaters in a row, I’m European F3 champion, GP3 world champion, so I don’t think I’m lacking experience in racing or wheel-to-wheel fight, so that’s it.”
The former Manor driver has had an impressive first full season to date, scoring points in seven of the eight races and sits eighth in the Drivers’ Championship.
“I’m not going to change my attitude, I think it’s been working well since the beginning of the year,” Ocon added. “Together with the team and the way we work, the only thing I think we will change is to be careful in what we do when we race, we will continue to race, it’s going to be a big competition between the two of us all the season long.
“It was both of our fault, I will make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future.”
