If Sergio Perez has a home away from home, it is Baku. Two wins, four podiums and more Azerbaijan Grand Prix points than any other driver on the 2026 grid.
Seven starts and 92 points, running from a Force India podium to two victories in a Red Bull. Of everyone racing today, this is the strongest single-circuit record in the field.
Two wins, and the Force India podium that started it
The first arrived in 2021, from sixth on the grid, on the afternoon Max Verstappen crashed out of the lead near the end. Plenty of drivers are in the right place when a race turns. Fewer of them are close enough to take it.
The second, in 2023, needed no help. He started third, took the lead and managed it to the flag. Two wins from seven visits is a strike rate nobody else on the current grid comes close to here.
Add the second place in 2022 and the third in 2018 and it is four podiums from seven starts, at a circuit with a reputation for eating people.
Before any of the Red Bull results there was 2018: eighth on the grid in a Force India, third at the flag. That is the one that tells you Baku genuinely suits him, rather than simply suiting whatever he happened to be driving.
2017 was the outlier, a seat problem dropping him to 15th, and 2019 brought a tidy sixth for Racing Point. Neither was a car that belonged near the podium.
Sergio Perez's Azerbaijan GP record year by year
Every Azerbaijan Grand Prix start, with the grid slot it came from and what it was worth.
| Season | Grid | Finish | Points | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 6 | P15 | 0 | Force India |
| 2018 | 8 | P3 | 15 | Force India |
| 2019 | 5 | P6 | 8 | Racing Point |
| 2021 | 6 | P1 | 25 | Red Bull |
| 2022 | 2 | P2 | 19 | Red Bull |
| 2023 | 3 | P1 | 25 | Red Bull |
| 2024 | 4 | P17 | 0 | Red Bull |
Back at Baku with Cadillac
2024 ended the run: a retirement from fourth on the grid, and his first blank Azerbaijan weekend since 2017. Then a season out of the car altogether.
He returns in 2026 with Cadillac, a team still looking for its first point. That makes a fifth Baku podium a very different proposition to the last one, but if there is one circuit where you would back him to drag a car further than it deserves to go, this is it.
He is back at Baku on 26 September in the C26. On raw pace that is nowhere near a podium, but this is the one circuit on the calendar where nobody should be surprised if he drags it somewhere it has no business being.
