BAKU, Azerbaijan — After a dominant win, albeit with a dose of luck at the end, Sergio Pérez increasingly seems like a contender for this season's Formula One championship.
Red Bull's status as the leading F1 team isn't in doubt, but now it's 2-2 on wins between Pérez and teammate Max Verstappen, whose lead is down to six points as the 25-year-old Dutchman seeks a third straight series title.
"Well done, guys, we dominated this weekend," Pérez told his team over the radio. "We are in the fight, guys."
The 33-year-old Mexican took advantage of a fortunately timed safety car to beat Verstappen to the victory in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix on Sunday, adding it to the sprint triumph he secured the day before as Red Bull kept up its winning start to 2023.
In what the stewards called a "very dangerous situation" near the end of Sunday's race, a group of people that included photographers had to run out of the way as Esteban Ocon came in for a pit stop on his penultimate lap.
Pérez took the lead when he managed to save time pitting during a safety car period after Verstappen had come in a lap earlier. The two didn't fight for position after that, but Pérez said they "pushed to the maximum" as he fought to keep the lead, and both drivers clipped the wall at different times.
Verstappen started second behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc but swept past him on the long start-finish straight at the end of the third lap, the first on which drivers were allowed to use the DRS overtake assist system on the rear wing.
It was a copy of the pass Pérez made on Leclerc on his way to winning the sprint Saturday. After Verstappen took the lead Sunday, Pérez needed only two more laps for his own similar pass on Leclerc to move into second. It was a powerful illustration of Red Bull's unbeatable race setup after Leclerc had signaled a minor resurgence for Ferrari by taking pole position for both the sprint and main race.
Pérez benefited when the safety car came out after Nyck de Vries' AlphaTauri slid off the track with a broken suspension, just after Verstappen had pitted from the lead. The safety car meant Pérez and Leclerc lost less time on their stops and came out ahead of Verstappen, who said he wanted Red Bull to review "if there was anything we could have done different" on the call to pit because de Vries had already stopped before Verstappen came in.
After that, the two Red Bull drivers pulled away from the pack in a straightforward win. Red Bull has won all four races this season plus the sprint in Baku. Leclerc finished third to continue his recovery after a poor start to the year and said the Red Bull cars had been "in another league" for race pace.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was fourth, followed by Ferrari's Carlos Sainz Jr. and Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton
Verstappen accepted it just hadn't been his day and was a calmer figure than Saturday, when he confronted Mercedes' George Russell regarding a first-lap collision in the sprint.
"Checo and I, we're having a good time," Verstappen said of Pérez. "You need to acknowledge and also appreciate when somebody has done a great job."
The international open-wheel series returns to competition next Sunday with the Miami GP. It's the first of three races in the United States on the 2023 schedule, with the others the US Grand Prix (Oct. 22 in Austin, Texas) and the Las Vegas GP (Nov. 19).