"Everyone in this room one day can make a mistake" - Sergio Perez advocates learning and setting 'right example' from Lewis Hamilton-Nelson Piquet racism row

Amidst the controversy surrounding Nelson Piquet's use of racist slurs against Lewis Hamilton over the past week, Sergio Perez felt that such actions must have consequences in order to learn from these mistakes.

In the driver's press conference ahead of the 2022 F1 British Grand Prix, the Mexican claimed that the incident, along with the action taken by Red Bull against Formula 2 driver Juri Vips for passing a racist comment, set examples for future generations entering the world of professional sport. He said:

“I think as a sport we certainly can do more, and it will never be enough, you know, to try and prevent these things from happening. And I think you could see that every comment out there has caused an example, you know, of how the sport reacted to it, how the community reacted to it. So I think we can all learn from it, because everyone in this room one day can make a mistake and say things you don’t want to say or something like that, but we feel like we can all learn from it and make sure that we give the right example to the younger generations, to the older generation and be seen as an example for the rest of the world.”

The Red Bull driver's comments hold significance in the fact that his team has generally reserved its views on the current debate around Hamilton and the racism he has faced.

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Sergio Perez confident going into 2022 F1 British GP

Sergio Perez, who is now driving in his second season for Red Bull in 2022, revealed ahead of the upcoming race at Silverstone that the time spent working with the team so far has helped with his confidence. He said:

“Yeah, certainly, I think it always helps. The longer you spend with a team, the better it gets. In many regards, you know, just the confidence within the team, knowing the procedures, knowing how a team operates, how they think in terms of strategies, how they see the big picture.”

He added, saying:

“I think it’s all about understanding the big picture, as a group, as a team, and that has helped me a lot. And certainly, guiding the direction of the car on my set-up, you know, on doing my own thing, it has helped me a lot.”

Red Bull announced a contract extension for Sergio Perez earlier last month, and currently have both drivers in the top two of the drivers' championship standings, with Max Verstappen in the lead.