Sergio Perez says Red Bull should ask the FIA why the stewards did not deem his first-lap crash with Kevin Magnussen at the Monaco Grand Prix worthy of an investigation.
Magnussen is two penalty points away from an automatic one-race ban and was trying to pull alongside Perez on the climb out of Turn 1, but as the barrier follows the curvature of the road he hit Perez’s left-rear wheel and sent the Red Bull into a high-speed crash. Both Haas drivers were taken out along with Perez — whose car sustained huge damage and admits he “was a little bit shaky” afterward — but race control stated no further investigation was required.
First-lap collisions are often viewed with more leniency than other incidents due to the proximity of other cars — with Nico Hulkenberg to Magnussen’s left on this occasion — but Perez says he doesn’t understand why there wasn’t a penalty for the Dane.
“I’m very surprised because the amount of damage and how dangerous the damage was,” Perez said. “We need to ask for a reason why it’s not been investigated, because without an investigation we don’t get a reason why it wasn’t a penalty.
“I think I got the ‘lap one, let them race,’ but I think this was more dangerous driving just to keep it flat out knowing that they were going to come into contact at some point. I think that was some dangerous driving.”
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While Magnussen claimed Perez didn’t leave him any room, the Red Bull driver says it was on the car behind to take avoiding action.
“If you see my onboard… you see Kevin’s car not even close to me, alongside me, and you could see that the wall is just getting closer and closer and to keep it flat out… There was only one way out of it, and it was either contact with my car [or] with the barrier — there were just simply no room for both cars.
“And at some point he had to realize that. I’ve been in that location and many times when you are the car behind, you just have to realize that it’s time to back off before things get closer to you.
“I think he clearly shouldn’t be there in first place because there is just one way to get out of that, where it will be just to hit the wall — he either hit the wall or hit my car. So how does he want me to leave him room if he is not even alongside?
“There’s a point where you see the wall is coming to you and you just have to back off. It has happened to me many times and there is a point where you just have to back off.”
Perez says he isn’t surprised that Magnussen was taking such a risk despite being so close to a race ban, as he believes the potential consequences do not cross his mind.
“I don’t think he really thinks about it, you know, about the outcome. You sometimes find yourself in a position and you have to take a very quick decision to say, ‘OK, there’s only one way of it and it’s going to be contact.’ I think we’ve got more important things to focus on. It’s been a very frustrating weekend. I’m happy that the weekend is over and I can’t wait to get to Montreal now.”