Ocon offers Perez olive branch

LONDON: Force India driver Esteban Ocon has offered an olive branch of sorts to Formula One teammate Sergio Perez after publicly accusing the Mexican of twice trying to kill him in Belgium at the weekend.

The 20-year-old said on Twitter yesterday that he had been “very much upset” when he made his comments in the heat of the moment after the two collided during Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

“We will be moving forward. We are a team and I appreciate my teammate apologising,” said the Frenchman, who is eighth and a place behind Perez in the driver standings.

“We want to work better together. I’m committed to the success of Force India, and I’m confident that as a team we will put this behind us to reach even greater levels of success together.”

The emollient tone contrasted with Ocon’s comments on Sunday, when he posted a clip of the incident and told his 64 000 followers that “Perez tried to kill me 2 times!”

Perez had replied in a video message on the same medium, accepting blame for the first incident between the two, but not the second, which he said was due to Ocon being “too optimistic”.

“I am very disappointed to see his comments that I wanted to kill him,” said the Mexican in a remarkably deadpan response. “I am not that type of guy...”

Sunday’s clashes were the latest in a build-up of bad blood, with the drivers warned in June about their conduct after they collided at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix with podium places up for grabs. – Reuters