Nikita Mazepin plus George Russell along with Mick Schumacher, Sergio Perez and Charles Leclerc talk about their incidents in F1 Saudi Arabian GP.
The chain of incidents in F1 Saudi Arabian GP was kick-started by Haas’ Schumacher who binned it in at Turn 22 in a similar fashion to Ferrari’s Leclerc. The German lost his rear while trying to hurry on and went sideways into the barrier.
It first had the safety car period but the race needed to be red-flagged for barrier repair. Following that, the re-start saw more drama with multiple incidents. Leclerc while fighting with Red Bull’s Perez made contact at Turn 2-3 which spun the Mexican.
It was too close to the wall for Leclerc and there was no space to go. The smoke blindsided many behind coming in hot in the left-hander. Williams’ Russell, having gone off at Turn 2, rejoined the circuit and arrived at the scene with another car ahead.
He slowed down which caught out Haas’ Mazepin as he clouted the back of the Williams. It ended the race for the Russian along with Russell and Perez. There was another red flag followed by several VSC period which troubled drivers as Leclerc explained.
Here’s what each said:
Schumacher: “Unfortunately, it seems like I was pushing a bit too much trying to get back into the DRS window of Russell and lost it going into T23. The pace seemed to be there, we were comfortably keeping up with the Williams and I think that was what we really weren’t anticipating, therefore being highly motivated but maybe a bit too much in that case. That one point is still the target, so hopefully we’ll manage to get it there.”
Mazepin: “I’m fine. I took quite a big hit, especially on the left side of my upper body, and for sure will wake up sore tomorrow. But yeah, I’d say I’m very fortunate to be racing in this era because the work that Jean Todt has done together with the FIA made us be able to walk out of this today. And I’m not sure if it was same, let’s say, 15 years ago. From what I saw, Charles didn’t have anywhere to go, spun Sergio around. The place is so tight that when Sergio was sideways it took about 85% of the circuit. So George seeing what’s happening took a precaution and then lifted or braked. And I was fighting with Stroll and we were both going to go flat through that place. But unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to stop, because the speeds were over 200, and just was impossible to avoid George’s back.”
Russell: “It was a big impact, I mean, it is so difficult for all the drivers. You come around a corner with a full gas and suddenly there’s a car sideways and smoke everywhere, you don’t know what’s about to happen. A lot to learn from this weekend in terms of the circuit, incredibly exhilarating, so fast, exciting to drive from driving perspective but lacking quite a lot from the safety perspective and racing perspective. Lets see what happens in future and in generally a lot to learn. To be honest, it was much of a same in opening few laps, it was just chaos from Turn 3 to Turn 7, you couldn’t see anything, the cars were everywhere. Again, it is a great track to drive but it is a bit of a recipe for disaster, so not a lot more to say. Definitely a rethink is needed and if do come back in 2022 as we are, we need to modify these kinks on the straights, it is so blind, we have already seen so many incidents waiting to happen.”
Perez: “I think more than that. I was in, you know, after the red flag I think I was a bit unlucky with it, so I lost a couple of positions. And then at the restart I had a good one, things were looking good at the time, and unfortunately we didn’t manage to consolidate on that. Charles was in a position where he couldn’t do anything, I wasn’t expecting him to be there anymore, you know, because there wasn’t more room for him, and yeah, then as we were doing the corner he just tangled my rear left tyre.”
Leclerc: “The crash with Checo, I couldn’t do anything about it. I was on the outside and I am pretty sure he saw me but I think he probably thought I had a choice to let it down but the wall was there and I had no choice. I tried to squeeze but it was close to the wall and we touched. We were lucky to not get much more damage but I had a quite a bit of flatspot on those hard tyres. It was very tricky. Also, the VSC for I don’t know how many laps for debris, this was horrible as a driver just to turn left-right-left-right for 10 minutes, I was feeling, honestly very dizzy in the car.”
Here’s Mick Schumacher crashing: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-schumacher-smashes-into-jeddah-barriers.1718330390641373813.html
Here’s Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez colliding: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-perez-crashes-at-restart-after-clash-with-leclerc.1718331971273162553.html
Here’s Nikita Mazepin colliding with George Russell: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-mazepin-crashes-into-russell-at-race-restart.1718332389092932946.html
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