Perez feeling ‘definitely in the mix’ for Baku pole

Sergio Perez thinks he could be in contention for his first pole position since last year’s Miami Grand Prix after one of his strongest Friday showings in months. The Red Bull Racing driver finished just 0.006s behind FP2 leader Charles Leclerc, with Lewis Hamilton slotting into third only 0.06s further back.

Perez is the Baku City Circuit’s most prolific performer, being the only driver to have won the race twice. He’s also the reigning winner, having won the Sprint and grand prix at least year’s event. But his form this year has fallen well short of that standard, having yet to look close to challenging for poles or victories.

His Friday times were also a marked turnaround from the team’s woeful performance at the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago, which precipitated dire predictions for a difficult weekend in Azerbaijan. The Mexican, who has always claimed his struggles are more down to the car than himself, said he was pleased that the team’s work in the days since Monza appeared to be paying off.

“It was definitely a good, solid day,” he said. “I think there is some good pace. We did good progress from FP1 to FP2.

“I think we are heading in the right direction. We’re finding that we can put a little bit more together the car. It’s still a long way to go I think, but it’s promising what we’ve seen so far. We just have to make sure we are able to progress. I think we can definitely be in the mix for tomorrow.

“Tomorrow, anything can happen really. We just have to keep our heads down and hopefully deliver a great couple of laps -- well, we only need one really in Q3.”

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Team principal Christian Horner said the RB20’s struggles in Italy had revealed underlying problems the team had been able to address in the lead-up to Azerbaijan, generating optimism that it can perform better than expected this weekend.

“I think [the mood] is pretty positive,” he said. “Monza was a tough weekend for us, but I think out of every negative comes a positive, and the negativity of that weekend exposed some key areas of the car that we've been grappling with for some time.

“I think it's given a clear direction, and so the whole team -- from the drivers putting in large amounts of time on the simulator all the way through every single department -- are really determined and pushing as hard as possible.