Sergio Perez believes his victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix “doesn’t change anything” in his pursuit of the Formula 1 World Championship. Perez claimed his second victory of the season in Baku, which coupled with his sprint victory on Saturday, reduced his deficit to teammate Max Verstappen down to just six points. Given the sizeable pace advantage the RB19 enjoys over the rest of the field, it is expected that either Verstappen or Perez will be crowned champion, but the Mexican downplayed the significance of the result in Azerbaijan. Perez’s F1 title talk “Well, it doesn’t really change anything to be honest,” Perez told media, including RacingNews365 when asked about the victory and its effects on his bid for a maiden title. “I only regret the problems we had in Melbourne that really made us lose a lot of points, but other than that, we have to win the races that we can, and when not, we have to score as many points as possible. “Because, if we don’t do that, then there is no way that we will be able to fight for the championship, so it is a long way ahead. “There are a lot of races coming up, a lot of different moments, but we have to make sure that when we are able to win a race, we grab it with both hands. Key point in Perez’s race Perez’s victory – the sixth of his F1 career – was built on a fortunate Safety Car, deployed after Verstappen had pitted in anticipation of it being deployed after Nyck de Vries stopped. Verstappen lost the full time behind the Safety Car, whereas Perez, who was just about to enter the DRS of his teammate was able to pit behind it and loose only 11 seconds of race time. And Perez admitted that he got lucky. “It was key [to overtake Charles Leclerc] but once Max got by, I knew that it was really important not to lose too much time with Charles, because if I were to lose too much time, then it would be really difficult to catch Max. “Luckily, I managed to spend just a lap behind Charles, and once I was able to clear him, lap by lap, I got into the DRS from Max, and that really made my race. “Once I was in his DRS, it was about time to overtake him, but he obviously pitted – and then we got the Safety Car, so I got a bit lucky there.”
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