'If this had become an incident, Perez would have been blamed'

During the sprint race at the Red Bull Ring, things almost went wrong between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. The two Red Bull drivers had a fight on the first lap, where both men showed their teeth. Jolyon Palmer analyses the fight in his analysis on Formula1.com.

The battle for first place

It was a battle where you just hoped it would go well. Perez got away better from his starting position and took the lead at turn one, but he came out a bit wide, allowing Verstappen to get alongside him. However, the Mexican did not give his Dutch teammate any space and Verstappen had to hit the grass on the straight towards turns two and three.

The two-time world champion did not leave it at this, however, and decided to brake his car later into turn three, passing Perez, who now had to go off track himself. Towards corner four, things got exciting for a while too, as the 'king of the streets' briefly got alongside his teammate, but this caused the Mexican to be driven outside, only to give Nico Hulkenberg the chance to pass Perez.

'Perez would be blamed'

Both men complained afterwards about the other's racing behaviour. Earlier, Damon Hill, among others, proved Verstappen right, but Palmer also thinks Perez is the one who could have been penalised: "I am still surprised that he technically didn't see him. He keeps steering straight, not to the right but his angle is still pointing to the grass. If you want to give someone space you have got to be steering to the left to open it up because the track is coming in. He is still going, even when turning slightly left, it's not enough because he's cramping the space of Max. It's a little bit cheeky from Checo. I think if that had been an incident, he'd have been blamed for it."