Hamilton and Perez share their views after dramatic Sprint race clash at Spa

Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez have offered up reactions following their Sprint race run-in at the Belgian Grand Prix – an incident that saw Hamilton pick up a penalty for his driving and Perez retire due to damage.

Hamilton was attacking Perez for fourth position shortly after Saturday’s wet encounter began, the Mercedes going side-by-side with the Red Bull through Blanchimont and banging wheels as their lines converged.

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With a chunk of his sidepod missing, Perez tumbled down the order, took a trip through the gravel and then retired, while Hamilton finished fourth but dropped to seventh with a five-second penalty dished out by the stewards.

Speaking to media after the session, Hamilton said: “I mean, I feel like it was a racing incident, but… It does feel like it was a racing incident, and in the trickiest of conditions. I was more than halfway alongside him, but yeah, a bit unfortunate.

“Ultimately fourth, with the penalty seventh, [but] you don’t really get a lot of points anyway in this session. We’ll try and fix the car for tomorrow and hope for a better race tomorrow.”

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Perez, meanwhile, commented: “We had a lot of damage from Lewis. He basically took the whole right-hand side of the car. Once we realised about the damage we retired.

“That meant game over on my race. Anyway, I look forward for [the Grand Prix] tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow we can recover those points.”

Perez and Hamilton are set to line up next to each other on the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix, with the Mexican qualifying second and the Briton third – Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc due to start from pole position.

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