Perez has a feeling for Baku
“Miss Smilla's feeling for snow” is a 1992 novel from the Danish writer Peter Høeg, which five years later was made into a film entitled “Smilla's Sense of Snow.” The English actress Julia Ormond plays the title role, that of a Danish girl with Inuit origins who has a special feeling for snow and ice and their numerous almost infinite varieties. If one paraphrases the title and applies it to Formula 1, one could say that Sergio Perez has a special feeling for driving on street circuits, especially Baku. The numbers bear this out as all bar the very first of his six Grand Prix victories have come at temporary tracks making use of normal city roads. Those wins came at Monaco, Singapore, Jeddah and Baku. His maiden victory, the one exception, came at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit, the one time when a different external track layout was used.
In fact, the Mexican is the only driver to have won more than once in Azerbaijan's capital city, first past the flag in 2021 and 2023, to which one can add victory in last year's Baku Sprint Race. Checo has always put on a show over the six kilometre track that runs alongside the shores of the Caspian Sea and through the old part of the city, with his results well above average. He has been on the podium five times from seven starts and is the driver with most points here on 115.
He clearly has a special feel for this track, underlined by a fine performance today, while his season so far has been something of a struggle. The Red Bull driver was second fastest, just six thousandths behind Charles Leclerc. Checo's race pace also seemed pretty good and, at least on today's showing, he could be a front runner both in qualifying tomorrow and in Sunday's Grand Prix.
Red Bull really needs Perez to be at his best at this point in the season, especially when it comes to the Constructors' championship in which the Milton Keynes team is at serious risk of losing its current first place for the first time in 55 Grand Prix. The last time, Red Bull were knocked off the top of the leader-board was in Miami in 2022, when Ferrari pulled out a six point lead, in what looked like a promising early part of the season for the Maranello squad. At the following round in Spain, Red Bull went into overdrive and retook the lead, which had looked unassailable, at least until this summer.
