Sergio Pérez walks away unscathed after high-speed F1 crash at Hungarian GP
• The Mexican driver quickly informed his Force India team he was OK • Incident in practice comes on first race weekend since Jules Bianchi’s death
Force India driver Sergio Perez escapes crash unharmed after this crash during practice. Photograph: Action Press/Rex Shutterstock
Press Association
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Sergio Pérez walked away unscathed from a high-speed crash in Friday’s opening practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Mexican driver suffered a rear suspension failure and lost control of his Force India on the exit of turn 11 before hitting the barriers on the opposite side of the track.
Pérez’s right-front wheel then appeared to get caught underneath his Force India which flipped his car. The former McLaren driver was prompt to inform his team he was “OK” before clambering out of his car.
The harrowing incident, which happened one hour into the 90-minute session, comes with the Formula One community mourning the loss of Jules Bianchi who died last Friday.
Friday’s session, the first on-track action since Bianchi succumbed to the devastating injuries he sustained at last year’s Japanese Grand Prix, was immediately red-flagged and a medical car was sent to the scene. Pérez was swiftly taken to the medical centre as a precaution but emerged waving to the grandstands.
“It was a really bad accident, pretty unlucky,” said Pérez. “The track was dirty and I went on the astroturf and I collided on the other side of the track at a very bad angle, so it made the car roll over.
“But everything’s all right. It was a strange accident. I thought it was under control but the astroturf was very dirty which is why I went in the wall. We’ll have to check everything in detail.”
Force India’s Sergio Perez escapes his crash unharmed. Photograph: Action Press/Rex Shutterstock The session restarted with a little over 18 minutes remaining and it was Lewis Hamilton who led the way. The world champion, a winner last time out at the British Grand Prix, picked up where he left off ending the morning on top of the timesheets with a fastest lap of imin 25.141sec.
He was 0.109sec faster than his Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg with Kimi Raikkonen in third, almost seven tenths off Hamilton’s best time.
Raikkonen’s session was then brought to a premature end, however, after he suffered a front-left tyre puncture which caused bits of his Ferrari front wing to scatter the track. The incident-hit session was suspended once more as marshals removed the debris from the circuit.
Daniel Ricciardo was fourth in his Red Bull followed by his team-mate Daniil Kvyat with Sebastian Vettel sixth. There was cause for optimism for McLaren, with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button 11th and 12th respectively, two seconds off Hamilton’s pace.
Friday’s opening practice session in the soaring heat in Budapest was the first since Bianchi’s tragic passing. And all of the drivers, most of whom attended his funeral on Tuesday, sported stickers reading “Ciao Jules” on their crash helmets.
Mercedes, Williams and Bianchi’s former team, Manor, also ran JB17 on their cars in honour of the Frenchman. It was announced earlier this week that his race number 17 would be permanently retired from Formula One.
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