Sauber denies suggestions that Perez was ordered to not attack Alonso in Malaysian GP

Perez was closing in on Alonso for the lead of the race in Sepang when a call came on the radio late on for him to take care.

His engineer told him: "Checo, be careful, we need this position, we need this position"

Shortly after that order was made, Perez ran off the track and lost valuable time - which cost him any chance of overhauling Alonso for a shock win.

That radio message prompted wild conspiracy theories that Ferrari may have requested Perez to back off to protect Alonso's chances - but Sauber has rubbished such talk.

"We told him, be careful - we need the result - because behind us, all of our competitors scored points," Sauber said when asked by AUTOSPORT about the situation.

"[It was because] we needed the result, not the position, so there is some misunderstanding. Behind us our competitors, all the midfield teams, scored points and it was so important that we kept the result not the position."

When asked if there had been any discussion with Ferrari about the situation, Sauber said: "One hundred per cent nothing. We had no discussion about Checo and we had no discussion about the position."