How Perez's “in the fight” claim for 2023 F1 title glory really stacks up

"We dominated this weekend. We just have to sort out the issues. We cannot have issues like we had in Melbourne. [If we can sort out the issues] we are in the fight, guys."

Sergio Perez, having won twice on the Baku streets last weekend, is certain that he can push his Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen in the 2023 Formula 1 title fight. And he clearly thinks he can win it too.

This is the Mexican driver’s best start to an F1 season, with two wins from the first four races, plus a second place in the season opener. He currently sits just six points back from Verstappen at the head of the standings, his Baku wins helping cut the 15-point deficit he’d faced after a tough Melbourne event.

Perez’s Baku weekend was an important milestone for the man himself, but what of the story of F1 2023? Well, although Perez won in Jeddah, holding Verstappen at bay once the Dutchman had recovered to second following his Q2 driveshaft issue there, given how Verstappen had been performing until that failure there’s no reason to suspect he wouldn’t have won the race starting from pole.

But in the opening Azerbaijan GP stint, Verstappen appeared the weaker of the two Red Bull drivers for the first time this year. He complained of sliding as the medium tyres wore, but subsequently reflected, “I could have been a little bit more aggressive with the way I was using my tyres”. Essentially, he should have pushed on to break Perez’s DRS threat once clear of polesitter Charles Leclerc, as the overtaking aid allowed the Mexican's ultimately victorious Red Bull to preserve its rubber in the corners and then still close on the long straights.

PLUS: How Perez profited in Baku to lay down his F1 title fight credentials

But the main reason the race swung to Perez was the safety car timing around Nyck de Vries’s crashed AlphaTauri. Had the leading pair both completed green flag pitstops, surely Verstappen would have emerged with his lead preserved thanks to the undercut and been able to push on – at least for a while – on the much more durable hard tyres to snap the DRS effect.

Perez profited from the safety car's arrival to beat Verstappen in the grand prix at Baku after triumphing in the sprint

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro

Bar the Jeddah and Melbourne qualifying problems for each Red Bull driver, it’s been very fine margins between them. Yet Verstappen’s two victories don’t include the caveats hanging over his team-mate’s.

That aside, the fact that the pair have been so closely matched so far in 2023 reflects very well on Perez. It speaks to his character and determination that he’s been able to put his 2022 drubbing behind him and come out fighting against a rival who just never stops being exactly that – even when already crowned as champion and asked to help his team-mate…

The opening phase of 2023 has included some beautiful driving from Perez, who is clearly settled at Red Bull and enjoying the unexpectedly positive twist to a career that appeared over in late 2020. And he appears to have addressed a key weakness from Bahrain and Jeddah, banishing the memories of his poor starts in those events with good getaways when it mattered – including the two rolling restarts against Leclerc last weekend – in Baku.

PLUS: Azerbaijan Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2023

Points-wise, when it comes to Perez’s title contention claim, he absolutely is in the mix. But resting against this is the five-point margin Verstappen had in hand at the same stage last year, when the pair then trailed Leclerc. That swung to a 149-point final margin over Perez come the season’s end. But in 2022, the RB18 losing weight also moved its best handling settings towards the looser rear end with which Verstappen can cope better.

Undermining Perez’s position is that Verstappen faced the same thing in Melbourne – as evidenced by his brief late race off with front locking – and still delivered commandingly

According to Helmut Marko, part of Red Bull's “solution” with the RB19 is that it suits the preferences of both drivers. That boosts Perez’s claim and title chances going forwards.

Perez actually feels he could be closer, and perhaps even leading Verstappen, had it not been for his Melbourne qualifying disaster. Logically, this stacks up. Even if we conservatively estimate that Verstappen would still have won with Perez second, the latter would now hold a one-point lead.

While that remains hypothetical, it’s worth exploring that off Perez had in Q1 in Melbourne. He mentioned it again, after all, just seconds after crossing the GP finish line in Baku. But there’s also a bizarre mismatch in explanations from team and driver on what was behind the incident.

Perez said in Australia it was a “technical issue” that was “moving the brake balance quite far forwards on the braking”. Team boss Christian Horner said, “he was late and hard on the brakes into T3” and “there’s certain things that when you… all the bits and pieces together that weren’t quite perfect but often these cars aren’t”.

Perez's championship position would look even better without the Q1 off which compromised his Australian GP weekend

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

When challenged on that difference – that Horner implied driver error was as much to blame – ahead of the Baku weekend, Perez replied: “That's what I hear from my engineers. I think we are very transparent within the team. And that was the feedback that I had. Sometimes everyone hears different versions, but at the time, I mean, we’ve always been transparent and that's the main version and the main thing that happened on Saturday.”

If nothing else, this reveals that Red Bull is trying to keep something under wraps – either to protect Perez or a critical aspect of the RB19’s design. This features a heavily revised braking system compared to the RB18, with a bigger disc fairing and lighter caliper. And it’s worth recalling here how Red Bull initially messed up lightening its DRS arrangement almost exactly a year ago and how that hampered Verstappen against George Russell in Spain. Any team can need time to get its innovations working perfectly.

But undermining Perez’s stance is that Verstappen faced the same thing in Melbourne – as evidenced by his brief late race off with front locking – and still delivered commandingly. Yet the Dutchman does seem to be behaving more along the lines of his approach at the 2022 Brazilian GP than might be expected in a season when Red Bull has no opposition. He’s not outright defying team orders, although he did ignore calls to follow a set pace during that late Jeddah pursuit, but his reaction to Baku sprint defeat and Russell pulling a very Verstappen move was eye-opening.

That can be chalked up to Verstappen’s unyielding character – maybe he was even annoyed Russell didn’t execute the uncompromising pass as well as Verstappen likely would have done had their positions been reversed. Perhaps it was a further reaction to his lack of enthusiasm for the sprint format overall.

But claims like “Checo and I, we’re having a good time” and Perez saying “there is a very high level of respect between Max and myself” do little to dispel the paddock rumours that the pair don’t really get on behind the scenes. It’s all rather Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg. And F1 fans remember what that led to at Barcelona in 2016…

Leclerc heads to Miami trailing Verstappen by 65 points instead of leading by 27 a year ago, with the manner of his Baku defeats from pole(s) reinforcing how the 2023 title fight is a purely intra-Red Bull affair. And Gianpiero Lambiase’s “these guys have got nothing to lose” message to Verstappen after the Russell clash is a reminder that Mercedes is in a similar position to Ferrari.

But at least Leclerc can get among the Red Bulls with the SF-23’s only real strength – being a pole threat. That raises hopes Ferrari might be able to stop a Red Bull season whitewash at a track where overtaking is impossible, say Monaco, or disrupt the leading two for a stint at a track where overtaking is hard, say Imola or Barcelona. Based on Bahrain, that is a bigger threat to Perez’s championship challenge than Verstappen, and at least keeps things slightly interesting for neutral fans.

Ferrari's challenge will likely be too sporadic to truly threaten Red Bull

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But the bigger blow to Perez’s title ambition claim is that he remains untested on the tracks where he was so poor compared to Verstappen last year. The ones with high-speed turns where an understeer balance, so handy when needing to be precise around a street track, becomes a hindrance. This will test Red Bull’s “solution” as much as Perez.

If he beats Verstappen in the upcoming rounds at Imola and Spain – even one would do – then, yes, Perez really is in the hunt. But the evidence from 2022 is against him, as is his Bahrain defeat.

Now F1 heads to Miami – a hybrid track in a savage Florida climate where driver fitness will be properly tested. The USA is the spiritual home of show business, and right now F1 has got something approaching box office with Perez taking on and rattling Verstappen. It just must hope it lasts.

Can Perez keep up his superb Baku form when F1 reconvenes in Miami?

Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images