Sergio Perez calls Azerbaijan return “one of my best weekends” despite missing out on points

By Vancouver Television Sports Desk

Sergio Perez believes his Azerbaijan Grand Prix performance was “one of my best weekends” in Formula 1, despite not reaching the points for Cadillac during last weekend’s race in Baku. The Mexican arrived in Azerbaijan buoyed by the circuit’s past success, including victories at the venue in 2021 and 2023 while driving for Red Bull, and he expected similar momentum from his latest stint in the city streets.

Perez said he enjoyed what he called his best practice outings of the season and that he “drove at a high level the whole weekend, especially in the race.” His weekend also featured a qualifying setback: he could manage only P20 and received a three-place grid drop for impeding. However, he recovered in Sunday’s Grand Prix, holding close to the midfield runners as he worked his way to P14.

In his explanation of what changed between sessions, Perez highlighted Cadillac’s ability to manage the early stages. He said the team stayed out for the whole first stint alongside Williams and used overtake mode to help maintain contact. Still, he concluded that the car’s limitations at Baku ultimately prevented a sharper move into the points-paying positions, noting that Cadillac was “a second, two seconds off the pace to compete with the others.”

Perez attributed the gap in performance to straight-line speed. He said the car lacked the pace on the straights and described itself as “too draggy on the straights.” He also framed the result as encouraging but incomplete: “Plenty of things we need to improve,” Perez said, adding that the end of the season is likely to be difficult.

Cadillac’s points drought remains a key context for Perez’s remarks. The team has yet to score during its maiden F1 season, with Valtteri Bottas’ P13 in China previously standing as the squad’s best finish. With the Azerbaijan weekend producing Perez’s joint-best result of the season—P14—the result still underscored the challenge of converting strong laps and race craft into top-10 pace consistently.

Looking ahead, Perez said the team is not expecting major upgrades before the season ends, but he is pushing for improvement through operational execution and better weekend optimization. He emphasized that there may be no fresh hardware arriving “unfortunately,” while stressing that Cadillac can still develop by “operationally” driving performance and getting the “maximum out of the weekends.”

Perez connected those efforts directly to longer-term planning, saying the team wants to “hit the ground running in 2027.” He closed with a clear message of urgency for the remaining races: Cadillac must “keep pushing a lot harder as a team and things will come,” as it works to close performance gaps in 2026 while preparing for the next development cycle.

At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix specifically, the overall picture of Perez’s weekend was a mix of strong preparation and race management with a clear performance ceiling in qualifying and on Baku’s high-speed sections. With P14 replacing the points missed, Perez’s comments suggest he sees a path forward through refinement rather than expecting immediate step-change results from upgrades.