Leclerc tells booing crowd he had 'nowhere to go' in Perez collision

The Ferrari driver tangled with Perez in a dramatic start to Sunday’s race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, sending the Red Bull driver airborne and into an early retirement. 

Perez was challenging for the lead and attempted to sweep around the outside of Leclerc and Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen into Turn 1. 

But the Mexican made contact with Leclerc, who was caught in the middle of a Red Bull sandwich with seemingly nowhere to go. 

Leclerc finished third behind Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and was booed by the crowd as he conducted his post-race interview in the middle of the stadium section. 

The Monegasque insisted he did not hit Perez on purpose. 

"A lot of booing. Guys I had nowhere to go,” Leclerc said. “I was a bit in between the Red Bulls and unfortunately I touched Checo. 

“It's life. I damaged my car and unfortunately it ended the race of Checo.

"On our end, we maximised our race. Of course, I'm disappointed to end the race of Checo like that but I really didn't do it on purpose and had nowhere to go.

"We struggled a bit with the hard after the restart. Lewis was really quick on the medium and they managed to have really good degradation."