'One of my best weekends' – Perez reflects on return to form despite missing out on points

Sergio Perez believes his performance in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix was "one of my best weekends" in Formula 1, despite failing to reach the points for Cadillac.

The streets of Baku have been a happy hunting ground for the Mexican, who took victories at the venue in 2021 and 2023 when driving for Red Bull, and Perez was hopeful of a strong result again last weekend.

Although Perez enjoyed his best practice outings of the season, the Cadillac driver ultimately fell short in Qualifying and could only manage P20, as well as receiving a three-place grid drop for impeding.

But in the race, Perez managed to stay in touch with the midfield runners on his way to P14 and his joint best result of the season.

"I think it's been one of my best weekends, best performance in Baku and I've had some good ones here," said Perez.

"I'm pretty pleased with that, I think I drove at a high level the whole weekend, especially in the race but we are simply a second, two seconds off the pace to compete with the others.

"We stayed the whole first stint with the Williams, with the Audi, helped by the overtake mode. But at the end, we just didn't have the straight-line speed, we are too draggy on the straights.

"Plenty of things we need to improve, but as we know, it's going to be a difficult end of the year."

Cadillac have still yet to score a point during their maiden season of F1, with Valtteri Bottas' P13 in China the team's best result so far.

While no major upgrades are expected before the end of the season, Perez hopes the team can improve in other areas in order to hit the ground running in 2027.

"I think we don't have anything coming to the car unfortunately but I think operationally and pushing the team to improve and get the maximum out of the weekends, I think we are heading in that direction," he said.

"We just have to keep pushing a lot harder as a team and things will come."