After a dominant win, with a dose of luck, Mexico’s Sergio Perez seems increasingly like a Formula One title contender.
Red Bull’s status as the leading team is not in doubt, but now Perez and his teammate Max Verstappen are 2-2 on wins, and the Dutchman’s lead is down to six points.
“Well done guys, we dominated this weekend,” Perez told his team over the radio. “We are in the fight, guys.”
Photo: Reuters
Perez took advantage of a fortunately timed safety car to beat Verstappen to the victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday, adding it to the sprint he secured the day before, as Red Bull kept up its winning start to the year.
In what the stewards called a “very dangerous situation” near the end of the race, a group of people, including photographers, had to run out of the way as Esteban Ocon came into pit on his second-to-last lap.
Perez took the lead when he managed to save time pitting during a safety car period after Verstappen had come in a lap earlier.
The two did not fight for position after that, but Perez said they “pushed to the maximum” as he fought to keep the lead.
Perez and Verstappen clipped the track wall at different times.
Verstappen started second behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, but swept past him on the long start-finish straight at the end of lap 3, the first lap on which drivers were allowed to use the DRS overtake assist system on the rear wing. It was a copy of the pass Perez made on Leclerc on his way to winning the sprint race on Saturday.
After Verstappen took the lead Sunday, Perez needed only two more laps for his own similar pass on Leclerc to seize second. It was a powerful illustration of Red Bull’s unbeatable race setup after Leclerc had signaled a minor resurgence for Ferrari by taking pole position in the sprint and main race.
Perez benefited when an accident by Nyck de Vries brought out the safety car after the AlphaTauri slid off the track with broken suspension, just after Verstappen had pitted from the lead. The safety car meant Perez and Leclerc lost less time on their stops and came out ahead of Verstappen.
The Dutch driver said he wanted Red Bull to review “if there was anything we could have done different” on the call to pit, as de Vries had already stopped before Verstappen came in.
After that, the two Red Bull drivers pulled away from the pack in a straightforward win.
Red Bull has won all four Grands Prix this season and the sprint in Baku on Saturday.
Leclerc was third to continue his recovery after a poor start to the year and said the Red Bull teammates had been “in another league” for race pace.
Perez is the only driver to win in Baku more than once and has four podium finishes in his past five races there.
“Checo [Perez] and I, we’re having a good time,” Verstappen said. “You need to acknowledge and also appreciate when somebody has done a great job.”
‘SOURCE OF PRIDE’: Newspapers rushed out special editions and the government sent their congratulations as Shohei Ohtani became the first player to enter the 50-50 club Japan reacted with incredulity and pride yesterday after Shohei Ohtani became the first player in Major League Baseball to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season. The Los Angeles Dodgers star from Japan made history with a seventh-inning homer in a 20-4 victory over the Marlins in Miami. “We would like to congratulate him from the bottom of our heart,” top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters in Tokyo. “We sincerely hope Mr Ohtani, who has already accomplished feat after feat and carved out a new era, will thrive further,” he added. The landmark achievement dominated Japanese morning news
When Wang Tao ran away from home aged 17 to become a professional wrestler, he knew it would be a hard slog to succeed in China’s passionate but underdeveloped scene. Years later, he has endured family disapproval, countless side gigs and thousands of hours of brutal training to become China’s “Belt and Road Champion” — but the struggle is far from over. Despite a promising potential domestic market, the Chinese pro wrestling community has been battling for recognition and financial stability for decades. “I have done all kinds of jobs [on the side]... Because in the end, it is very
No team in the CPBL can surpass the Taipei Dome attendance record set by the CTBC Brothers, except when the Brothers team up with Taiwanese rock band Mayday. A record-high 40,000 fans turned out at the indoor baseball venue on Saturday for Brothers veteran Chou Szu-chi’s first farewell game, which was followed by a mini post-game concert featuring Mayday. This broke the previous CPBL record of 34,506 set by the Brothers in early last month, when K-pop singer Hyuna performed after the game, and the dome’s overall record of 37,890 set in early March, which featured the Brothers and the
With a quivering finger, England Subbuteo veteran Rudi Peterschinigg conceded the free-kick that sent his country’s World Cup quarter-final into extra-time before smashing his plastic goalkeeper on the floor in frustration. In the genteel southern English town of Tunbridge Wells, 300 elite players have gathered to play the game they love. “I won’t say this is the best weekend I’ve ever had in my life, but it’s certainly in the top two,” said Hughie Best, 58, who flew in from Perth, Australia, to compete and commentate at the event. Tunbridge Wells is the “spiritual home” of Subbuteo, which was invented there in 1946