Sergio Perez calls Baku one of his best weekends, despite finishing 14th for Cadillac at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. The team remains without points in its debut season.

Previous Baku wins in 2021 and 2023 set expectations. Practice pace looks competitive, reinforcing confidence after strong time-trial runs and pre-event expectations in Baku.

Qualifying unravels that momentum. Perez places 20th and receives a three-place grid penalty for impeding, compounding track-position loss heading into Sunday.

From the back, Perez executes a tidy, low-error race and climbs to 14th, equalling his season best and shadowing midfield runners, as reflected in the season race results.

He rates his driving highly but concedes Cadillac lacks the sustained pace to challenge leaders across a race distance.

The core limitation is straight-line speed. Higher drag trims top-end performance on Baku’s long straights, even with brief overtake-mode assistance against Williams and Audi.

That deficit forces conservative tyre management and leaves overtakes reliant on rivals’ errors or traffic. Cadillac’s best result remains Bottas’s 13th in China.

Development prospects are limited. No major upgrades are expected before season end, shifting emphasis to operations, execution, and smarter weekend strategy.

Perez argues collective improvements can extract small but meaningful gains, particularly in qualifying management, pitwall calls, and restart handling.

Looking ahead, he expects Cadillac to return stronger in 2027, provided resources target performance fundamentals and correlation. Race-day upside meanwhile depends on execution, safety-car timing, and track-position management.

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Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller reports on Formula 1 Grand Prix weekends with race-day analysis, team-radio highlights, and point-standings updates. He explains power-unit upgrades, aerodynamic developments, and driver rivalries in straightforward, SEO-friendly language for a global F1 audience.