George Russell and Sergio Pérez were the protagonists of an incident on the first lap of the race this Sunday at the Red Bull Ring, when the Mexican tried to overtake the Briton from the outside at Turn 4 in a battle for fourth position.
Russell and Perez ‘s cars came into contact and the Red Bull car ended up in the gravel, causing damage to his car which subsequently forced him to retire, while the Mercedes car was penalized five seconds and had to replace its front wing when it made its first pit stop, although he managed to cross the finish line in fourth place.
The Mexican said he had given the British “enough space” and said he was “very surprised” as he did not expect such a touch from a driver of his level.
However, Russell gave a very different point of view to Checo when analyzing the maneuver after the race at the Austrian Grand Prix.
“I’ve seen the video and I think (the penalty) is tough. I mean, you’re racing at the start, there are cars everywhere. Checo [Perez] made a risky move going around the outside like that,” explained the of Mercedes .
“Obviously he had done it before, he did it with Valtteri Bottas yesterday and he had to climb over the curb to avoid it, which is exactly what I tried to do. But with Carlos Sainz in front, it limited my movements and in the end I had nothing to do. I feel sorry for him because his career ended there,” he added.
Asked if he accepts responsibility for the crash, Russell indicated that Perez could have opened up more to the outside to avoid contact.
“As I said, there was nothing else I could have done. He was braking and turning as much as he could. There was probably more room on the outside for him, and as I said he was doing as much as he could.”
“At a certain point I knew it was inevitable, because I was already on the limit with my car. So it’s risk versus reward and [Perez] suffered this with Lando Norris last year and he was very close with Valtteri [Bottas] yesterday. . The play with me today was exactly the same.”
Russell regretted what happened with Pérez , but valued the fourth place he took from Austria.
“It was a bit frustrating to have this incident at Turn 4 and obviously I lost a huge amount of lap time from the damage, probably around a second a lap,” said the Briton.
“Then I found out about the penalty, I did the front wing change and the 20 second pit stop, I guess it wasn’t bad in the end to finish where we did, coming up through traffic. But overall, yeah, a bit frustrating. “, he concluded.
