21 July 2023 , 13:40
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Martin Brundle was left mystified by Sergio Perez's crash just three minutes into the first practice session ahead of this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.
The Mexican is in the midst of a rotten run of form by Red Bull's standards. He has the quickest car on the grid, but has managed just one podium in his last five races and has not qualified in the top 10 since Miami in early May.
He wants to end that streak at the earlier opportunity and would have wanted a clean weekend in Budapest. But within minutes of the start of FP1 such wishes were out of the window as he buried his RB19 into a tyre wall.
Speaking after the session, Sky Sports pundit Brundle found it difficult to understand how the Mexican has managed to get himself into this situation. He said: "I can't get my head around that. It is a rookie error.
"I think back to his brilliant victories earlier this year in Saudi and in Azerbaijan, and his utterly brilliant victory last year in Singapore on a drying track, one of the most challenging races I've seen in a long time, where he was perfect. And then, he does that.
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"I can only assume it's the pressure. He didn't just clip the edge of the grass or the white line, he was on the grass by a metre or so. I can't get my head around it at all.
"Sergio has been so rock solid all through his career. He's not been that dynamic and goes on the missing list sometimes, but my goodness is he fast, consistent and keeps the tyres intact. All of these errors are so inconsistent with how his Formula 1 career has been."
Martin Brundle described Perez's crash as a 'rookie error' (Sky Sports)Perez has insisted this weekend that the return of Daniel Ricciardo to the F1 grid with sister team AlphaTauri has added no extra pressure onto his shoulders. But Brundle's punditry colleague Danica Patrick does not believe that is true.
She said: "I'm sure he's been feeling a lot of pressure from different directions, but it's obviously been heightened by the Daniel Ricciardo situation and the potential of him going to the team in the future. Sergio just does make mistakes here and there, it's a little bit more in his nature.
"I really think this [incident] was a scenario where he wasn't up to speed, and when you're not up to speed you're just not in that hyper focused spot you need to be in to not make those mistakes. They happen more easily when you're not trying as hard. It was a misjudgement."
Given Red Bull have brought new upgrades this weekend that they want to test in practice, Brundle went on to mention the impact the crash might have on their plans. He added: "Red Bull want him glued to [Max] Verstappen's gearbox when he's not winning and maximising the points.
"What they don't want him doing is throwing the new upgrades sidepods and bits and pieces into the fence. They didn't get much running in the other car in the dry weather either.
"They've got quite an extreme cooling situation going on with the sidepods – they needed to get up and running. The level that they're at and the experience that the drivers have at Red Bull, they did not need that."