Sergio Perez Looks Back To Baku

Checo Looks Back To Baku

We relive Checo’s best moment for the Team so far this season.

With

the

summer

break

coming

and

racing

for

over

two

weeks

thought

we’d

catch

with

Sergio

Pérez

and

relive

the

best

moment

he’s

had

since

becoming

Bull.

As soon as we said we wanted to talk about Baku, Checo relaxed and smiled, but it wasn’t a perfect weekend for the Mexican driver. “Qualifying didn’t go as planned! I wanted one more push lap, but due to the red flag I was unable to, so qualified P7,” he said.

Bull On The Baku Streets

Sunday was instantly better for Checo when McLaren’s Lando Norris was demoted by three places for not respecting the procedure during a red flag. This meant Checo was promoted a place and started P6 on the grid. He was soon up to P4 by turn three of the first lap. “I made progress straight away, we had good pace and we were looking after our tyres and at the right time we started pushing the people ahead.”

Checo then overtook Charles Leclerc to move into P3 as he was heading down the start/finish straight at the end of lap seven. Teammate Max then took the lead at the end of lap 11 when Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton went into the pits. The Team opted to keep Checo out for longer to see if he could get the overcut on Lewis. At the end of lap 12 Max dived into the pit, which saw Checo take the race lead, until he pitted at the end of lap 13 and remerged in P3, behind Max. With Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel in P1, still yet to pit. “We had a slightly slow pit stop, but the overcut worked and I came out ahead of Lewis. If the pit stop had gone smoothly, it would’ve been close with Max and there was a chance I could’ve overcut him as well.”

Of course, we all know what happened on lap 47 with just four laps remaining with just remaining. “We were running one-two the entire race,” explained Checo. “And then with a couple of laps from the end, Max had his failure with the tyre, which forced him out of the race and a red flag waved. That created a a lot of stress because suddenly we had to stop, reset and restart the race, which is difficult to do.”

A Defining Race Restart

After the race was going so well and set for a double podium, Checo said it was a high-pressure situation. “It was so intense during the red flag. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain – it was all about winning the race – if I finished second it would’ve been a bad result, so it was so important to get that start right.”

However, Checo had a technical issue at the restart, so he wasn’t perfect off the line. “I had a bad start, there was an issue with the clutch, but luckily Hamilton went straight on into turn one and lost out. I managed to get out in front and win the race,” Checo explained. “But who knows what would’ve happened if I’d had a good start with Lewis locking up at turn one, maybe it was good I had a bad start for once!”

You could see how happy the Team were when Checo was on the podium, but there was no time to drink in the win. “We didn’t get a chance to celebrate, we had to take a flight home,” said Checo. “I had a shower at the track and then we went straight to the airport. I think I was on the simulator the next day. In this season’s calendar you win a race and it’s onto the next one. I was able to take the trophy home though luckily and show it to my family so they could have photos with it, but then I had to bring it back to the factory for the team’s trophy cabinet.”

Checo's Baku Trophy

After his first race win for the Team Checo followed that up with another podium in France. “It was nice to get on top and show the Team that it can happen and that we can get these results, it also helps when we have a bad result, because we know we can do it,” concluded Checo.