Perez, the nightmare continues
Together with Daniel Ricciardo, on his ‘debut’ with AlphaTauriSergio Perez was the other great observed of this Budapest Friday. There was curiosity as to whether the presence of the Australian as Nyck De Vries’ replacement would put pressure on the shoulders of the Mexican, who has been in a crisis of results for months now with the second Red Bull. The answer came after a few minutes of activity on the track, in PL1, with Perez having crashed his RB19 into the barriers. A definite mistake”frustrating” by his team principal, Christian Horner.
Taking responsability
The Mexican – who has then hosted a little fan of his in the box together with the teamframed by the cameras while he was in tears after he went off the track in the morning shift – he didn’t try to hide behind a finger, candidly admitting his inattention. “The accident? It was a mistake on my part – Perez explained to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 at the end of the day on the track – but the guys did an amazing job fixing up the car and allowing me to ride a bit in FP2″.
Sergio Perez and Red Bull Racing turn this young fan’s tears into big smiles with a special paddock invitation 🥹💙 #HungarianGP #F1 @redbullracing @SChecoPerez pic.twitter.com/VCs3NYHNWD
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 21, 2023
distant from the vertex
However, the afternoon session was not particularly exciting for the #11 Red Bull, at least in terms of results over the flying lap. In fact, Perez only collected the 18th time overall in the second round. “We had the updates to look into Checo reported. and I had to modify my program in FP2, also because with this new format it will be important to find a good balance with all the compounds, because we will have to use them all in qualifying”.
Tire work
At least on this last point, Perez seemed satisfied: “I had some good information – he has declared – we were able to ride even with the average and we collected some good data”. Qualifying, more than anything else, seems to have become the Mexican’s Achilles heel this season. In the last five races the second Red Bull driver has never reached Q3, while Max Verstappen collected five consecutive pole positions. Another disappointing result in Hungary would be even more detrimental, given the notorious difficulty of overtaking at this circuit for modern F1s.
#Perez #excuses #Accident #mistake #FormulaPassion