Esteban Ocon has slammed his team-mate Sergio Perez for his part in a clash during the Belgium Grand Prix that cost Force India a double points finish.
Running side-by-side on the exit of La Source, Ocon was seen to have been crowded towards the wall by Perez.
The result was a broken front wing for the Frenchman and an immediate puncture for Perez, with the damage sustained eventually leading to his retirement. The stewards deemed the collision as a racing incident.
While Perez labelled his team-mate’s attempt at an overtake at that part of the track as ‘optimistic,’ Ocon has taken an alternative view.
“He just squeezed me into the wall at 300kph risking my life – risking his life – for no reason and costing a lot of points for the team,” Ocon said. “He is supposed to be a professional driver, but he didn’t show it today.
“I will go and talk to him. I will tell him the truth and I will not be scared of him. If it needs to be man words it will be.”
The incident is the second time this season that the pair have collided during a race. Force India lost a potential double-podium result in the frantic Azerbaijan GP in June, when Ocon ran into Perez at the exit of the 90 degree left-hander at Turn 2.
The cumulative result of this incident combined with the clash in Belgium is a potential unwillingness from Force India’s pit-wall to allow the drivers to race in the future.
“I only saw what you saw [on TV], but it looked like Sergio squeezed Esteban into the wall and came out the loser of that scrap,” the team’s chief operating officer Otmar Szafnauer told Sky Sports during the race.
“In the future they’ll never have that opportunity again. We’ve let them race up until now. If they can’t do it in a manner which is good for the team, then they won’t be racing anymore.
“We’ve told them if it happens again, if a Baku-type incident happens again, then we’ll be calling the race from the pitwall in the future.”
When asked to comment on Szafnauer’s opinion, Ocon said; “I fully understand the point of Otmar. How many points have we lost today because of that. We were running in a great position.
“Hopefully we can get the boss back with us just by showing that we are professional but that’s even worse for him [Perez]. He’s 28-years-old and for seven years he has been racing in F1.
“I guess he has to think about what he does.”
