Sergio Perez suffered an ominous start to his Hungarian Grand Prix as the under-pressure Red Bull driver crashed in practice.
Red Bull arrived at this round of the Formula One season in fine spirit, given Max Verstappen’s chamionship lead, but rumours have circulated over Perez’s future at the team after a quiet run of form.
Daniel Ricciardo’s return to F1 with reserve team AlphaTauri has heightened the speculation, which Perez dismissed ahead of the weekend.
Yet the Mexican crashed only a few minutes into first practice on Friday, hitting the barrier at Turn 5 at high speed after losing control of his Red Bull.
RED FLAG! 🚩
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) July 21, 2023
Sergio Perez goes off the track! 😬 pic.twitter.com/YWrjoSmNFM
The incident came after the team had loaded a number of upgrades onto Perez and Verstappen’s car for the grand prix, with team boss Christian Horner describing the crash as “frustrating”.
“It’s obviously frustrating to have that off,” he told Sky F1 midway through first practice.
“We haven’t got the car back yet but hopefully [the damage]’s contained mainly to the front corner, which hopefully will be repairable in time for the next session.
“It was unfortunate, he’s just put a wheel on the grass and made a mistake into Turn 5. I will [speak] to him after the session.
“Hopefully he won’t have lost too much because in these conditions not many people are getting laps in, but obviously not the ideal way to start the weekend.”
Perez was not the only driver to go off-track in Friday morning’s wet practice session, as Carlos Sainz also spun and clipped the barrier.
George Russell topped the timesheets ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lance Stroll in a session that is not expected to have a massive impact on Sunday’s race.
