Daniel Ricciardo quipped that Sergio Perez’s record at the Baku City Circuit acts as inspiration that midfield teams can pull off a surprise result at Formula 1's Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Formula 1’s top three teams – Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull – have locked out most of the podium position in recent years, but Perez has often been an outlier.
Perez climbed onto the rostrum upon Baku’s debut in 2016 and last season claimed third spot once again – the only podium finish achieved by a midfielder in 2018.
It also ensured he is the only driver on the grid with multiple podium finishes at the six-kilometre street circuit.
“For any midfield team, hats off to Perez, he is the inspiration here,” said Ricciardo, who won the 2017 race while competing for Red Bull.
“He has had more podiums here than anyone else. What a legend! That is the best example.
“It is one of those ones where you have to be in it to win it, you really do.
“But you have to take the most of the opportunities.
“So it is having that balance on Sunday where you still got to be fired up and ruthless enough, but if it is like if this is going to maybe take your race away from you in the first 10 laps, it is like ok maybe save it for later because more s**t is going to happen.”
When asked why Baku has a tendency to lead to unpredictable action, Ricciardo replied: “It is like the Macau of F1 because you’ve got a street circuit so the walls create the risk.
“Low grip because it is a street circuit. So more chance to make mistakes. Low downforce. So more chance to make mistakes. And crazy high speeds because of this long straight. So you get massive slip streams, tows. And that brings the racing close together.
“A lot of the corners are low speed so you don’t get a bit loss through the aero side, so you can hang close through the whole lap. Then massive tows on the straight.
“It is all that, then the high speed at the end of the straight when you are going 340, 350 [kph], that just creates a level of adrenalin that probably gets us a bit more jacked up than we normally are!”
