Sergio Perez says contact on the second lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix with Carlos Sainz Jr “destroyed” his race.
The Mexican was attempting to pass the Toro Rosso driver early in the race, but he got onto the marbles and the two collided.
Perez was forced to pit for a new front wing, while Sainz Jr suffered a puncture. The Force India finished a lowly 16th.
“Not the best of weekends for me: I knew I had to get a good start after yesterday’s qualifying result and I managed to pull off a great one, making up a lot of ground,” he explained.
“Unfortunately, on lap two I made contact with [Carlos] Sainz, which ended up destroying my race. I was in his tow and when I went onto the marbles on the inside I just couldn’t stop the car enough. It was a real shame as the pace was there to score a good amount of points.
"During the rest of the race we had a lot of tyre degradation, but it’s too early to draw conclusions about what happened today: we need to go back to HQ and look at the data to make sure we come back strongly in China."
His team-mate Nico Hulkenberg also had a difficult race in Bahrain, pitting on the first lap with front wing damage: "A difficult and disappointing race where not much went to plan. I made a poor start away from the line and was on the back foot going into Turn 1.
"Then suddenly three or four cars backed up on the apex and I nudged the back of somebody, which damaged my front wing and forced me to pit on lap one. From there onwards we tried to recover and pull off a two-stop strategy to get back in the race, but it proved very difficult.
"I was always in traffic and involved in lots of fights so my tyre degradation was very high. I don’t think we’ve seen our true pace today because the first lap destroyed my race and we were out of synch with everybody and always playing catch up."
