Red Bull driver Sergio Perez has jumped to defend himself after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz lashed the FIA following a controversial safety car process in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
A fuming Sainz called for the FIA to act “quicker” and “more efficiently” after pointing out he was hampered by a safety car process involving Perez in Jeddah.
Sainz was exiting the pit lane as Perez navigated the first couple of corners of lap 17.
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And while Sainz was deemed to be ahead of Perez when returning to the track, the Mexican didn’t relinquish third place until the safety car period had ended.
The FIA’s delayed decision-making meant Sainz didn’t have a chance to challenge Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for second place when the race resumed at the end of lap 20.
“I was trying obviously to block him,” Perez said when asked about the incident in an interview with motorsport.com, “which is allowed, in terms of you are able to cross the safety car line. So I felt everything was done in all fairness.
“The team told me to give back, so I gave it back straight after the safety car.
“I mean, they have more information, inside the car you don’t know where you exactly are for safety car line one.
“So, yeah, in that regard, I felt it was the right thing to do.”
Perez was leading the race comfortably when he became the first of the frontrunners to pit.
The safety car period then allowed other drivers to pit with a minimal loss of time.
The yellow flags were implemented after Williams driver Nicholas Latifi crashed.
“Bad luck, bad timing,” said Perez, who finished in fourth.
“I felt I had the race pretty much under control, and then came this incident from (Nicholas) Latifi. And basically it hurt me and it just came at the wrong point of the race for me.
“I mean, as a driver, there’s nothing you could do. We had everything in place, plenty of margin for the undercuts and, unfortunately, we couldn’t execute what we should.
“It’s a bit painful in the car, but this is racing, and going into the race, especially these kind of races, you know that these things can happen. So, yeah, a bit of bad luck.”
Perez’s fourth-placed finished in Saudi Arabia followed a DNF in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Sainz finished second in Bahrain and third in Saudi Arabia.
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