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The crash comes at an inopportune time for Perez as speculation grows that he could lose his seat at Red Bull Racing over the F1 summer break.
Red Bull is coming under increasing pressure from McLaren, Mercedes, and Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, increasing the need for both the squad’s drivers to deliver points.
Crashing out of qualifying at such an early juncture condemned Perez to a lowly starting spot – one expected to be transferred to the pit lane owing to the repairs his car requires.
“It was quite an impact,” he admitted.
“Luckily [I’m] all good, bit of pain on the let but other than that all good.”
Perez lost control at Turn 8 as conditions at the Hungaroring changed, spinning into the barrier where he tore both left-hand wheels off his car and damaged the rear end.
“I think I clipped the kerb and, at that point, it was raining harder,” he explained.
“It was quite late in the corner and it just sent me off completely in the wall.
“It’s something that was so hard to just, the conditions,” he added.
“It was raining harder but at the end you were not losing grip; I was improving my lap.
“In hindsight, when you look at it, we were safe, we didn’t need to do that lap, but you also know a lot afterwards.
“It hurts, you know, that it happened again, especially in the run that I am going through.
“But I’m determined to turn this around.”
Perez had a positive start to the weekend on Friday.
He was 11th fastest in opening practice but only used a single set of hard compound tyres.
That improved to fourth in the afternoon, his time just over two-tenths slower than team-mate Max Verstappen’s.
“The feeling with the car is improving, the understanding with it as well,” Perez noted.
“We’re definitely making progress.
“Yesterday was probably the best Friday of the season, so there is light at the end of the tunnel, but we just have to come through it, and hopefully tomorrow can be the day.”
Should his form not improve in quick order, Daniel Ricciardo and Liam Lawson have been flagged as potential replacements.
That could see one of the pair in Perez’s car following the F1 summer break amid suggestions performance clauses exist that would allow the team to make such a change.
“Nothing changes,” Perez asserted of his current plight, despite his Hungarian qualifying crash.
“I’m not worried. I’m fully determined to turn my season around and to focus on my performance.
“I’m really finding it… I wouldn’t say fun, I would say a challenge, something that, mentally, it’s really tough,” he added.
“The easiest way would be just to give up, after the career I’ve had, to say it’s been enough, but it’s not what I want to teach my kids, not what I want to show, this sort of character.
“It’s important to turn things around, get back to our form.
“But you’ve seen it with many other drivers, that they’ve had a difficult weekend.
“Probably when you are at Red Bull it’s a lot more [noticeable].”
Perez is currently on the worst run of results he’s had since joining Red Bull Racing in 2021, having scored just 15 points in the last six races.
The Hungarian Grand Prix begins at 15:00 local time (23:00 AEST).
