Saturday polesitter Verstappen complained of wheelspin off the line in the slippery conditions. This delay allowed Perez to dive up the inside into the Turn 1 right-hander.
But Perez’s tight line on entry forced him wide over the painted exit kerbs, which meant he lost traction and then appeared to drift back across the circuit to the inside.
That delay under acceleration allowed Verstappen to reel in his team-mate but as Perez moved more towards the right, the Dutch driver briefly clipped the grass to avoid contact.
Perez reckoned that, owing to the spray, he had not seen his team-mate in this moment.
Verstappen’s initial reaction over team radio was: “He pushed me off. What the fuck”.
At the end of the 24-lap race, he added: “The exit of Turn 1 was not really nice. That could have been a really big shunt. We need to have a chat about that. It was not OK.”
The pair then had a discussion in the safety car garage and seemed to come away with some clarity on the incident as neither stoked the battle in their parc ferme interviews.
Perez said he had been unable to see his team-mate but when he realised, handed back the position. The Mexican explained: “We had a good start.
“A bit of a fight with Max and that obviously gave a position to Nico [Hulkenberg] which he was very strong in the first few laps, so it was quite hard to get by him.
Source: Autosport