The red flags were waved twice during Saturday’s qualifying session of the 39th Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix, during which Lando Norris took the pole position. In the first stage of qualifying, Sergio Pérez crushed Red Bull, but at the end of Q3, Juki Cunoda had a bigger crash than the Mexican, who crashed into the barrier of the RB (VCARB) car at the exit of turn 5.
Although he was examined by doctors as a precaution, Cunoda survived the collision unharmed, which according to the team’s data was 50 Gs. In view of this, the Faenza squad released the Japanese competitor from his media obligations, who thus only spoke to F1 TV at the end of Saturday, not to the written press.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect this” Cunoda was quoted by RacingNews365.com. “I was just running wide, but I was still well inside the track with half of my tires already on the grass. That kind of thing happens now, maybe because it was still wet, which magnified the impact.”
“I was on a great lap until the corner, so it’s a shame” – the Japanese regretted his accident. “I was more worried about the car than myself, so I hope he got away with it. I’m disappointed and obviously I feel sorry for the team.”
Yuki goes flying into the barriers!
A scary moment for Tsunoda, but the RB man was ok#F1 #HungarianGP pic.twitter.com/gdyPcY3Ogq
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 20, 2024
The site of Cunoda’s accident is among the few points on the track that were changed by the International Automobile Federation (FIA) before the weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix: a 2.5-meter long grass strip was created at the exit of turn 5 in order to prevent four-wheelers leaving the track. Seeing the transformations, however, another RB driver, Daniel Ricciardo, was not at all surprised by what had happened.
Cunoda left serious marks on the rubber wall… (Photo: Olivér Kováts/Vezess)
…and also on the tape barrier. (Photo: Olivér Kováts/Vezess)
“We walked around the pitch on a few Thursdays and already saw that the edge was quite deep” quoted by Motorsport-Magazin.com the Australian, who says that the lawn carpet is clearly a step back compared to the previous solution. “We thought that if we slide on it with a wheel, it will be like sitting on a skateboard. And so it happened.”
Even after the qualification, the German portal reported that it is expected that the design of the grass border will be modified during the night – we already saw signs of this during our tour of the track on Saturday evening. When we were there, the ominous section was excavated using a grapple – a gallery opens by clicking on the image below:
Source: www.vezess.hu
