Sergio Perez blasted for ‘rookie mistake’ after accepting blame for Hungarian shunt : PlanetF1

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Sergio Perez has admitted his crash at the start of FP1 in Hungary was largely a mistake on his part, a mistake that has left former driver-turned-pundit Martin Brundle confused.

Perez wasn’t even able to clear the five minutes of the Hungarian GP’s opening practice session before encountering major drama.

Coming out of Turn 4, he drifted too wide and plunged a wheel into the grass, sending it into a spin and smashing the barriers, making all the mess of this upgraded Red Bull RB19 for the race weekend.

Sergio Perez accepts responsibility for the accident

Perez’s session ended on the spot, although the Red Bull team was able to get him back on track for the second session of the day.

It was nonetheless an alarming incident for Perez, a driver very much under pressure to prove himself worthy of driving the RB19, who, in the hands of team-mate Max Verstappen, remains the dominant challenger on the 2023 F1 grid.

Meanwhile, Perez hasn’t reached Q3 in the last five races, scoring just one podium in that span.

“Just a mistake on my part,” Perez admitted after Friday’s race.

“But the guys have done a tremendous job of getting the car together and getting it running smoothly in FP2.”

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Martin Brundle can’t understand ‘rookie’ Sergio Perez crash

Brundle was struggling to come up with an explanation for this Perez shunt, with the pressure he’s under the only thought that comes to mind.

Said pressure on Perez was heightened with Daniel Ricciardo moving from Red Bull reserve to their sister team AlphaTauri rider from the Hungarian GP for the remainder of the season.

And Brundle says such mistakes by Perez are by no means typical of his career.

“I can’t understand that,” said the Sky F1 specialist. “It’s a rookie mistake.

“I think back to his wins earlier this year, his brilliant win in Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan, his utterly brilliant win last year in Singapore on a drying track in one of the toughest races I’ve seen in a long time where he was perfect.

“And then he does that! I can only assume it’s pressure because he didn’t just cut the edge of the grass or the white line, he was on the grass a yard or something and I can’t figure it out at all.

“Red Bull want him glued to Verstappen’s gearbox when he’s not winning, maximizing the points. What they don’t want him to do is throw all the new sidepods and improved bits into the fence. Then they haven’t run much in the other car in the dry while they have a pretty extreme cooling situation with the sidepods.

“They needed to get up and run and at the level they are at, the experience the drivers have at Red Bull, they didn’t need that car in the wall.

“Sergio is so rock solid. Throughout his career he hasn’t been so dynamic sometimes, sometimes he’s on the absentee list, but my goodness is he’s quick, consistent, keeps the tires intact. So all those mistakes are so inconsistent with the way his Formula 1 career has been.

Perez enters the P2 Hungarian Grand Prix in the Drivers’ standings, but now 99 points behind team-mate Verstappen.

Read next: Red Bulls wind tunnel time under public scrutiny after new sidepods unveiled

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