Carlos Sainz has hit back at suggestions he was to blame following his crash with Sergio Perez at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday.

The duo were both competing with Oscar Piastri for glory when they collided on the penultimate lap of the race.

Christian Horner has waded in, with the Red Bull chief laying the blame firmly at Sainz’s door.

Yet the Ferrari star has now come out fighting and insisted he wasn’t responsible for the dramatic incident.

“Big accident. Unfortunately, I hit the barrier straight on the concrete wall,” he said.

“I was coming very quickly behind Charles [Leclerc] and Checo [Perez].

“I had saved my tyres well. I moved over to Checo when he was fighting Charles.

“Then I think we exited turn two, I did my normal racing line, I didn’t do any strange manoeuvre or anything, and for some reason that I still don’t understand, we collided.

“I think he [Checo] had plenty of space to lift. I didn’t do any strange movement.

“But I guess that’s racing. Sometimes you do 48 laps without doing anything, and then you get to two laps, three laps to go and things like this happen.”

Sainz was asked by GPblog if he’d spoken to Perez.

He responded by saying: “Yeah, we spoke. We hadn’t seen the incident when we spoke. We will see it now at the stewards.”

Perez himself has also reacted to the crash.

The Red Bull star said it was a ‘disaster’ for his side – and also blamed Sainz by saying he ‘moved too quickly’ at the ‘wrong time and wrong moment’.

He said: “In my opinion, Carlos moved too quickly to follow the tow from Charles.

“It was the wrong time, wrong moment. It resulted in a huge shunt.”

He continued: “It’s a real shame that it happened.

“I mean, I am lost for words. It’s a disaster for the championship.

“For both of our weekends to end like this, when we definitely had more on the table, is a disaster.”

And Perez also admits Red Bull have plenty of work to do as they look to win the Constructors’ Championship, especially with Max Verstappen only able to finish fifth.

We’ve got some work to do,” he said.

“We saw with Max today that with a small set-up difference and you arrive at the window quickly.

“Plenty of work to do, going forwards.”