Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez have a Close Call

During the qualifying session of the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix, there was an incident involving Daniel Ricciardo and Sergio Perez. The incident took place during the dying stages of the Q1 segment and a few cars had backed into each other.

This created a massive queue and Daniel Ricciardo was at the tail end of the train. As the train of cars approached the final turn, Ricciardo got impatient.

He dove around the outside of one of the Haas cars and tried to pass Perez’ Racing Point. However, the Mexican driver was having none of it and put the Renault in its place. The two nearly collided, but managed to continue.

Unfortunately, it compromised Ricciardo’s run and as a result he missed out on a Q2 berth. It got worse for Renault as Nico Hulkenberg in the sole surviving Renault was eliminated from Q2.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Perez said, “We were stuck with traffic so everyone was trying to open a gap.”

“But what Daniel [Ricciardo] tried there was very disrespectful. He wrecked his lap, my lap and I end up starting my lap too close to Norris and I think Daniel was very close to me too.”

“We are queuing up for the final lap and Daniel tries to overtake, therefore I am having to push because it was the final corner otherwise you start too close to him.”

“So a very bad day for us.”

However, Daniel Ricciardo had a different take on the incident. Speaking to RaceFans, he said, “I was told that I had quite a buffer to the chequered flag so I knew I could have gone slower. But what I didn’t expect at the time was the train of cars in the last corner. At the time I wasn’t really aware the number of cars that still were yet to start their lap.”

“I saw Lewis go and he went through and got a clear gap,” said Ricciardo. “So it’s like at that point do I go? And I’m like ‘yeah I’m going to go’. I got Grosjean and I thought I could clear Perez but we were both side-by-side in the last corner.”