Force India team-mates Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon have insisted that it is time to “forget” about the past and embark on a “new relationship”, amid their recent clashes.
Pérez and Ocon, following a near-miss in Canada, a collision in Azerbaijan, and a lap-one brush in Hungary, twice made contact in Belgium.
The pair collided on the run towards Eau Rouge, with Ocon sustaining front-wing damage and Pérez copping a puncture, with both losing points in the incident.
Ocon accused Pérez of twice risking his life, while Pérez believed his team-mate was too opportunistic.
Facing the press at Monza on Thursday, the duo presented a united front, in the wake of Force India confirming that they are no longer free to race.
“I think we’ve been racing very closely lately,” said Pérez.
“We had a couple of incidents in the last races, I had a really good conversation with him personally, between him and me.
“It’s time to move forwards, everyone has his opinion, engineers have one opinion, fans, us, different on what has been happening.
“The most important now is to move forwards, the objective is to finish P4, we cannot afford to lose more points, we’ve lost points in those races, and I’m fairly sure these things will not happen again.”
“I believe a new relationship can start from now on and we can work as a team and put the interest of the team first, we came to that agreement and it’s quite simple.”
Ocon added: “What has happened before has happened, we can’t change what happened before, we have to move forwards, we talked this morning together, just us two.
“It’s time that we forget all that, work hard for the team, that’s what’s important, what they deserve as well, that we behave as professionals, and keep challenging the others.
“I think we both crossed the line, we touched, so something was wrong.
“I’m not going to argue as it’s all behind [us], but for sure we crossed the line and we can’t do that in the future for the team and even for us.”
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