Ocon will not change his attitude to driving and teammate Perez

Esteban Ocon has stated he has no intention of change his attitude despite coming under fire from Force India teammate Sergio Perez following their incident in Baku, with the Frenchman saying they were both to blame. 

Two weeks after their team orders dispute in Montreal, Perez and Ocon came to blows in a more damaging way in Baku when they made contact while fighting for position following a safety car restart. 

Both cars suffered damage, costing Force India the chance to score its first podium finish of the season and prompting its bosses to warn both of their respected drivers about the importance of the team result. 

Perez pointed the finger at Ocon for the incident, saying it was an unnecessary move, and said that he should consider changing his attitude. The Frenchman responded by saying he felt they shared blame for the clash after sitting down with the team and reviewing the incident from all angles. 

"I'm not going to go into details really but there were things [Perez] did which were not right. There were things I did which were not right," Ocon said.  "So overall it makes it a racing incident and fifty-fifty, so we are both to blame on that. I think in the future we will both be more careful to not touch because we can't lose opportunities like this, to be scoring big points.  Williams is in a good shape and they are bringing updates to the car. They are getting faster as well. We can't afford to lose points like that." 

Perez told reporters earlier in the day that Ocon needed to "change his attitude" and understand "what racing means", prompting a prickly response from his team-mate. 

"I don't want to respond to those comments," Ocon said. "I've been finishing more than 40 races in a row in single seaters, I'm European F3 champion and GP3 world champion, I don't think I'm really lacking experience on racing or wheel-to-wheel fights. 

"I am not going to change my attitude. I have been working well since the beginning of the year together with the team and the way we work. I think the only thing we will change is just to be careful with what we do when we race.

"We will continue to race because it will be a big competition between the two of us all the season long. Especially as I will take more experience and be more comfortable on tracks I know. We just need to keep up the fight and that's it."

Sian Williams