George Russell and Sergio Perez both had their races ruined after a collision at the Austrian Grand Prix.
When a Mercedes and a Red Bull go up against one another, we are used to seeing Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen engaged in battle. But this time it was their team-mates, as they fought for fourth place on the opening lap of the race.
Russell had track position and was trying to defend against Perez, who tried a move around the outside. For a moment it looked like both drivers left a fair amount of room, but the Mercedes understeered coming out of the corner and they touched wheels.
As a result, Perez was sent spinning off the track and into the gravel trap – much to the disappointment of many fans at the Red Bull Ring. Fortunately for the Mexican, he was able to keep his wheels spinning and quickly escaped to avoid having his race ended prematurely.
But it meant that he dropped a long way behind the rest of the field, and that gap grew further when he was then called into the pits for new hard tyres. It wasn't long before Perez was lapped by the front-runners, such was the gap between him and those racing ahead of him.
And Russell didn't get away without damage either, with his front wing picking up a problem in the collision. To make matters worst, the stewards felt he was at fault for the contact and the young Brit was slapped with a five-second time penalty.
He served that punishment as he came into the pits to have the nose of his Mercedes swapped. The pit crew had to wait for five seconds before starting to work on his car, leading to an extra-long stop which caused him to fall down the running order.
Predictably, both drivers were quick to protest their innocence over team radio. Russell told his Mercedes engineers: "Nothing I could do, he just turned into me." Meanwhile, Perez declared that he had left enough room for Russell during his attempted overtake.
After 25 laps, Red Bull decided enough was enough and that too much damage had been done to Perez's car. He was told to come into the pits again, where they retired the car to leave all their hopes for the weekend on Verstappen.
