Sergio Perez thinks he may very well be in competition for his first pole place since final 12 months’s Miami Grand Prix after one in every of his strongest Friday showings in months. The Purple Bull Racing driver completed simply 0.006s behind FP2 chief Charles Leclerc, with Lewis Hamilton slotting into third solely 0.06s additional again.
Perez is the Baku Metropolis Circuit’s most prolific performer, being the one driver to have gained the race twice. He’s additionally the reigning winner, having gained the Dash and grand prix a minimum of 12 months’s occasion. However his kind this 12 months has fallen properly wanting that commonplace, having but to look near difficult for poles or victories.
His Friday instances had been additionally a marked turnaround from the crew’s woeful efficiency on the Italian Grand Prix two weeks in the past, which precipitated dire predictions for a tough weekend in Azerbaijan. The Mexican, who has at all times claimed his struggles are extra all the way down to the automotive than himself, stated he was happy that the crew’s work within the days since Monza gave the impression to be paying off.
“It was undoubtedly a great, strong day,” he stated. “I feel there’s some good tempo. We did good progress from FP1 to FP2.
“I feel we’re on track. We’re discovering that we will put just a little bit extra collectively the automotive. It’s nonetheless an extended option to go I feel, nevertheless it’s promising what we’ve seen to date. We simply have to ensure we’re in a position to progress. I feel we will undoubtedly be within the combine for tomorrow.
“Tomorrow, something can occur actually. We simply need to hold our heads down and hopefully ship an important couple of laps — properly, we solely want one actually in Q3.”
Workforce principal Christian Horner stated the RB20’s struggles in Italy had revealed underlying issues the crew had been in a position to handle within the lead-up to Azerbaijan, producing optimism that it could actually carry out higher than anticipated this weekend.
“I feel [the mood] is fairly constructive,” he stated. “Monza was a troublesome weekend for us, however I feel out of each damaging comes a constructive, and the negativity of that weekend uncovered some key areas of the automotive that we’ve been grappling with for a while.
“I feel it’s given a transparent route, and so the entire crew — from the drivers placing in giant quantities of time on the simulator all through each single division — are actually decided and pushing as laborious as doable.
