Sahara Force India F1 Team‘s Sergio Perez is not a ‘reckless’ driver, the team have insisted, after Scuderia Toro Rosso‘s Daniil Kvyat accused the Mexican of performing a ‘desperate’ move during the Monaco Grand Prix.
In the closing stages of the Grand Prix, Perez collided with Kvyat down the inside of Rascasse, forcing the Russian to retire from the race, and the incident left Kvyat enraged, with the stewards handing Perez a ten-second penalty as a result.
“He pushes hard but he’s not reckless,” spoke Force India COO Otmar Szafnauer. “He usually makes the moves stick.
“He overtook [Lance] Stroll, [Jolyon] Palmer, [Stoffel] Vandoorne, and tried on Kvyat. He probably overtook more than anyone [in this race], three of the four successfully.”
When asked about the incident, Szafnauer believed it happened due to the fact that Kvyat left too much room on the inside.
“I thought the FIA recently said, ‘Let them race.’ Did they not? That’s the new edict,” he added. “Well, that, to me, was a racing incident. The door was open and then closed. It ruined Checo’s race too, that’s punishment enough – I don’t know why Toro Rosso would want anything else.
“Yeah, it ruined Kvyat’s race, but you don’t leave the door that wide open. You take Rascasse like you should, take a tight line like everyone else does, and it doesn’t happen. Do the fans want to see that kind of stuff? I think so. I’d hope so.“
