Oscar Piastri’s Cooldown Room Reaction to Sergio Perez & Carlos Sainz Crash

Oscar Piastri’s reaction to the Sergio Perez-Carlos Sainz Jr incident summed up the intensity of the 2024 F1 Azerbaijan GP, while also displaying the character that fans have come to know him as.

The Australian won his second race of the season after a tense battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, and watched the replay of the crash for the first time in the cooldown room with the Monégasque and third-placed George Russell.

Sainz and Perez were dicing it out for third place behind a struggling Leclerc when they came to blows on the penultimate lap, tangling tyres and slamming into the inside wall on the straight between Turns 2 and 3.

Cooldown Room Reaction to Perez & Sainz Crash

The podium trio’s initial reaction was understandably one of shock at the hefty incident, though, thankfully, both the Spaniard and the Mexican were unharmed.

Piastri then said to Leclerc: “Tell you what, they’ve not been great friends this weekend.”

He then eventually finished off his comment by adding: “That’s the third time. They finally finished the job.”

Piastri’s dry humour and comments are part of the reason why the F1 fan base have come to embrace the young Aussie as the new Kimi Raikkonen. The Finnish 2007 champion was iconic for his ice-cool demeanour and bluntness, something that Piastri has displayed in his growing career.

Azerbaijan 2024 Grand Prix Review

It was a great day for McLaren, but another one to forget for Red Bull

The McLaren driver hounded poleman Leclerc for much of the race before a sensational Turn 1 dive bomb on lap 20 to take the lead. He then produced a stout defence against the Ferrari ace before pulling away as Leclerc’s tyres started to lose grip to score an excellent victory.

His comments were references to prior incidents during this race weekend in which the Sainz-Perez pair were involved with one another, albeit not at the scale of the Sunday crash.

Sainz was given a warning during practice on Friday for getting in Perez’s way during one of the Mexican’s laps, before the roles were reversed on Saturday’s practice, and it was Perez’s turn to be warned for impeding Sainz. It eventually became third time lucky (or unlucky in this case) as Sunday saw the duo finally collide at the very end of the race. Perez had caught Leclerc with laps to go and was trying to overtake the Ferrari when Sainz also caught up.

On Lap 50 of 51, Perez went around the outside heading into Turn 1, but was faced by a strong defence by Leclerc on the brakes, allowing Sainz to sneak into third. The Spaniard ran wide into Turn 2 and left some space on the inside for Perez to pull alongside. As they looked to gain slipstream from Leclerc, the Ferrari and Red Bull drifted into each other while aiming for the same piece of tarmac, tangling into a mess and shunting into the barrier.

As a consequence, Perez is now 12 races without a podium (China) while Sainz is on a six-race podium drought (Austria). The number 55 lost plenty of ground to teammate Leclerc and Piastri in the fight for third in the Drivers’ Championship, while Perez slipped to eighth behind Russell on virtue of the Brit’s Austrian GP win. The biggest damage for Perez, however, came in the Constructors’ Championship as Red Bull lost their lead for the first time this season to McLaren due to Piastri’s win and a P4 finish by Lando Norris.