Force India team principal Otmar Szafnauer has called the Turn 1 clash between both drivers at the Singapore Grand Prix "unacceptable" and has threatened to enforce strict team orders should they continue to misbehave.
Esteban Ocon's race ended when he made contact with team-mate Sergio Perez as they exited the opening sequence of corners at the start.
When asked by Sky Sports on his thoughts on the accident, Szafnauer replied: "Well I mean it’s unacceptable for them to come together like that in an area there’s no run-off room. They’ve got to leave each other room.
"The team is more important than any one individual and we'll have to go back to the rules we instilled on them last year. If that’s what they're going to do we’re going to have to take control from here.
"Once they're in the car it's hard to control what they do but prior to that we can control them."
Perez apologised for the incident over team radio once the race was neutralised under the safety car to clear his team-mate's stricken VJM11.
Szafnauer also made it clear he would impose the strict engagement rules the team employed in the second half of the 2017 season, should the pair continue to clash with one another.
"You’ve got to give your team-mate enough room," he said. "If it’s somebody else, if it’s not your team-mate, then it’s a racing incident but if it’s your team-mate you’ve got to give room.
"It’s been over a year since [the last clash] it happened and it was in Baku last year that we installed the rules. It was after Spa, if you remember, and from Spa until here it hasn’t happened so we are back to the old rules.
"We allowed them to race on lap one whereas in the past we didn’t allow them to race on lap one and now we can remove that.
"If they continue to do this, even on lap one, then there’s other ways to separate them which we hope that we don’t ever have to employ."
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