{"id":544318,"date":"2026-03-16T15:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544318\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T15:51:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:51:10","slug":"post-race-crash-avoided-by-perezs-quick-thinking-mechanic-%c2%b7-f1-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/544318\/","title":{"rendered":"Post-race crash avoided by Perez&#8217;s quick-thinking mechanic \u00b7 F1 \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/sergio-perez\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sergio Perez\u2019s<\/a> Cadillac was almost involved in a post-race crash at the Chinese Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>The quick reactions of a Cadillac mechanic helped prevent the team\u2019s car from rolling into the stationary Alpine of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/pierre-gasly\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pierre Gasly<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The near-miss happened after Perez took the chequered flag and parked his car in parc ferme. He had climbed out of his MAC-26 and left it to the care of his mechanics, who jacked it up onto a wheeled stand.<\/p>\n<p>Moments later the car began to roll sideways towards Gasly\u2019s A526. A mechanic working on the sister Cadillac of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/valtteri-bottas\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valtteri Bottas<\/a> spotted the imminent collision and sprinted to grab its front-left wheel, preventing the two vehicles from colliding.<\/p>\n<p>Although any impact would have been at a low speed, both teams are short on spare parts at this early stage in the new season. Gasly said on Thursday he was grateful for his team mate\u2019s quick reactions to avoid a crash in Australia due to the team\u2019s shortage of parts.<\/p>\n<p>Newcomers Cadillac have also incurred damage over the opening rounds. Perez\u2019s car lost much of its engine cover during the sprint race in Shanghai and he tangled with Bottas during the grand prix. Bottas inspected the corner of his car Perez hit in parc ferme.<\/p>\n<p>Perez took full responsibility for the first-lap contact between the pair, which caused him to spin. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text-above-ad\">Advert | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/contribute-racefans\/racefans-supporter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat was fully on me,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw the gap and I went for it, but Valtteri didn\u2019t have [any]where to go. I was over-optimistic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo full apologies on that one to Valtteri and the team. It ended up costing me [in] the race. I spun, I lost a lot of track time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cadillac got both cars to the finish for the first time in their second grand prix, Perez finishing 15th and last, two places behind Bottas.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/2026\/03\/16\/post-race-crash-avoided-by-perezs-quick-thinking-mechanic\/cadillac-2-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-563514 nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/cadillac-2.jpg\" alt=\"The Cadillac mechanic reached Perez's car just in time to avoid a crash\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" class=\"size-full wp-image-563514\"  \/><\/a>The Cadillac mechanic reached Perez\u2019s car just in time to avoid a crash<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-above-ad\">Advert | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/contribute-racefans\/racefans-supporter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Miss nothing from RaceFans<\/p>\n<p>Get a daily email with all our latest stories &#8211; and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:<\/p>\n<p>2026 Chinese Grand Prix<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.racefans.net\/tag\/2026-chinese-grand-prix\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Browse all 2026 Chinese Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergio Perez\u2019s Cadillac was almost involved in a post-race crash at the Chinese Grand Prix. The quick reactions&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[265950,64,63,3550,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-544318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-2026-chinese-grand-prix","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cadillac","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=544318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}