Felipe Massa furious with Sergio Pérez after 190mph crash in Montreal (original) (raw)

Felipe Massa has pointed an accusing finger at Sergio Pérez for the spectacular crash that left both drivers needing hospital checks.

The incident came on the final lap of the Canadian Grand Prix at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, with Massa and Pérez scrapping over fourth place behind race winner Daniel Ricciardo in his Red Bull.

As Massa pulled out from behind Pérez to pass, the Mexican made a small move to his left, resulting in the Brazilian, in his Williams, smashing into the left-rear wheel of the Force India.

It resulted in Pérez ramming into a barrier to his right, whereas Massa hurtled straight on into a tyre wall at turn one, suffering a 27g impact, narrowly avoiding the Red Bull of third-placed Sebastian Vettel en route.

Although both drivers emerged unscathed from their cars, they were assessed at the track medical centre and then airlifted to hospital.

Massa said: “I thought it [the accident] was going to hurt because it was a very strong impact. I’m really happy nothing happened.

“I spoke to him [Pérez] at the medical centre. I was so disappointed with him. I said he needs to learn. I wanted him to put himself in my place because I had a huge crash. It’s not the first time he turned into somebody under braking. He has done this many times but he didn’t say anything. He just turned and left.”

Massa was also scathing of the stewards’ decision to hand Pérez only a five-place grid penalty for the next race in Austria on 22 June. “I hope he learns because we were doing 300 kilometres per hour [190mph] at the time. It was dangerous and we could have had a very serious accident, so for me the penalty is not enough. We could have crashed into Vettel.”

Williams’ head of vehicle performance Rob Smedley joined Massa in condemning the actions of Pérez and also Force India for allowing him to continue despite a rear brake problem.

“We showed them evidence from the radio transcript – which I think was around lap 67 – where he [Pérez] said ‘I’ve no rear brakes’ I think was his comment,” said Smedley. “They [Force India] said ‘Well if you can carry on, carry on, and if you can’t, pit’. That says to me it’s a fairly terminal problem.

“Why you leave a car out when you’ve that sort of problem is beyond me. You saw two teams – one of which was ours – knowing when to call it quits.”

Smedley added: “With Valtteri [Bottas], we had to tell him to back off saving brakes and saving engine – critically brakes because it can be dangerous. We had to back him off and we had to lose points. That’s life.”

Perez hit back, saying: “It was very disappointing to lose such a strong result through no fault of our own.

“I was following the same line and braking patterns as in the previous laps, and I just got hit from behind by Massa.

“There was plenty of space on the left of my car to attempt a clean overtake, and I cannot understand why he had to scrape by.

“I watched several replays of the incident and I can’t help but notice how Felipe turns right just before he hits me.

“I can only think he must have changed his mind and wanted to rejoin the racing line. His misjudgment cost us a big amount of points.”

Turning on Smedley next, a fired-up Perez added: “Also, I’m not happy about comments saying we should have retired the car.

“It was perfectly driveable with just some adjustments and we showed it up until the moment in which we were taken out.

“Other cars out there had been in similar conditions for way longer than us and they finished the race without problems.

“If someone thinks you can keep two Red Bulls behind for as long as we did with so-called ‘terminal’ problems, they are clearly misguided.”