The good and bad news for Sergio Perez as F1 returns at Baku

The bad news for Sergio Perez? After three races of the 2023 Formula 1 season, he sits 15 points behind Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen in the Drivers’ World Championship.This weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku promises to be right up his street. Literally.

It is a quirk of the calendar that five of the opening seven rounds are held on street circuits – could that explain why Perez tends to start a season strong? – and in the absence of an external threat all eyes will once again be on him to take the fight to Verstappen in Baku. Third in the standings after three consecutive P3 finishes to start the season, Fernando Alonso memorably scored the hardest-fought points of his career in Baku in 2018 by hauling a badly wounded McLaren to seventh place.

The abiding memory of Mercedes’ last visit to Baku was the sight of Lewis Hamilton shuffling away with his hand clutching his back after a particularly punishing race where the W13’s porpoising problem was at its most extreme. With the vagaries of the Baku weekend set to bring opportunity, expect another all-or-nothing drive with Leclerc prepared to end up in the wall for the sake of forcing Ferrari’s first podium of 2023.

Having pipped McLaren to fourth in the standings last season, could Alpine live to regret their failure to punish their closest rivals across the first three races of 2023?

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