"I should be leading the championship" - Sergio Perez targets title challenge after beating Max Verstappen at the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP

Sergio Perez expressed his delight at winning the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP and was thrilled to fight for the championship against his teammate Max Verstappen. The Mexican is the closest to challenging reigning world champion Verstappen since no other driver from other teams is able to catch the Red Bulls.

Speaking to Viaplay, Perez was delighted with the main race and also with the sprint race day on Saturday, April 29. He had nothing more to say other than claiming how amazing the race weekend was. He said:

"Unbelievable. The weekend has been an amazing one. I'm super pleased, and, yeah, I cannot say more, you know, it's been a tremendous day for us. I'm super happy, it was a tremendous race yesterday, today, I think the way we executed it was perfect."

When asked about the championship fight with his Red Bull teammate Verstappen, Perez affirmed that he was enjoying the title battle. He also explained how he could have been leading the championship had he not encountered any issues during the 2023 F1 Australian GP. Perez added:

"Definitely, I should be leading the championship if it were not for the problems we had in Melbourne. So we are definitely in the fight for the title."

Perez admitted that the safety car that came out during the Azerbaijan GP helped him quite a lot. However, he feels that he would have won the race even without the safety car, simply because of their tremendous race pace. The Mexican concluded by saying:

"Yeah, certainly! But I know what goes around comes around, but I think today we were the fastest car on track, and I think regardless of the safety car, we will have won the race."

Currently, Sergio Perez is only six points behind Max Verstappen in the drivers' championship. Only time will tell how the Mexican will fight against the reigning world champion.

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Sergio Perez summed up his race in the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP

Sergio Perez was victorious in the 2023 F1 Azerbaijan GP. He overtook Charles Leclerc in the first few laps, stayed close to Max Verstappen, and managed to take the lead during the safety car period.

Expressing his initial thoughts after the race, Checo spoke to Damon Hill at Parc Ferme:

"Yeah it really worked out today for us. We managed to stay in the DRS train and we managed to keep the pressure on Max. I think we had a better deg on that first stint. It was looking good already from the start.

"Then the safety car came and bunched everyone up so it was again another race on the hard tyres. I think it was pretty close between us. We pushed to the maximum today. We both hit the walls a few times and we were pushing out there."

After the safety car period, Perez drove brilliantly to maintain his lead for the rest of the race, keeping Verstappen behind him.