The Mexican suffered his first retirement of the season in Montreal after the right front suspension of his Cadillac collapsed without any contact. Images showed the steering wheel visibly turned to the left to keep the wheels straight before the incident.
Sergio Pérez's first retirement of the season came at the most unexpected moment, the Mexican from Cadillac was in the middle of a battle with Esteban Ocon for a position just outside the top 10 when his MAC-26 began to show signs that something was not right.
It all happened on lap 39 of the Canadian Grand Prix, a track where the walls are glued to the asphalt and any mistake can be very costly, but on this occasion there was no contact against the barriers nor against another car.
Vibrations were the first symptom, followed by an evident loss of direction that forced Pérez to keep the steering wheel visibly turned to the left to keep the wheels straight, an image captured by the on board camera of the American car that left the commentators speechless. When he approached the braking point for the final chicane, the Mexican driver stepped on the brake and saw how the right front suspension collapsed without warning, unable to do anything other than take the pit entry and stop at his team's pit box.
"I started the race on intermediates, it was a 50-50 decision and we took the risk, at a certain point it started to rain less and it became clear that we had made the wrong choice, in three laps we destroyed the intermediates but then we tried to recover, we showed good race pace, we had a good battle with Haas, we even overtook them, but then we had a suspension failure and that was the end, I didn't touch anything or anyone, it was really a break," explained Pérez at the end of the race.
The replays broadcast by the production did not clarify what happened, at first it was legitimate to think of contact between the two contenders' cars with Pérez coming off worst, or a hit against a wall, something more than plausible on a track like the Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal. However, the Mexican's statements offered a very different picture from what seemed legitimate to expect, there was no touch or hit, the suspension simply gave up.
The failure sets off alarm bells at Cadillac, which had already received warnings from its drivers about the quality of certain components in recent weeks, Valtteri Bottas had suffered similar problems with the steering wheel in Miami and now it was Pérez's turn with a break that could have serious consequences if it is confirmed to be a recurring manufacturing problem.
Cadillac added another zero in the constructors' championship and doubts about the reliability of the MAC-26 grow as they await an investigation to determine the exact causes of this mysterious incident.
