Sergio Pérez

The 2021 Azerbaijan Grand Prix at the Baku City Circuit produced a result that summarised Sergio Pérez's particular genius in a single result. With Max Verstappen having suffered a dramatic tyre failure on the penultimate lap while leading comfortably, the race was restarted and Pérez — starting from seventh on the restart grid after his own earlier pit strategy — managed the chaotic final laps with a composure that produced one of the most emotionally significant victories of his career.

Pérez's affinity for street circuits and for tyre management races is well documented, but Baku 2021 demonstrated a specific quality beyond those: his ability to hold together a race situation in which multiple things are happening simultaneously, where the strategy is shifting in real time and other drivers are taking risks that he cannot afford to match. He took the lead after the restart, defended it through the final laps against Hamilton's aggressive attempt to pass, and crossed the line with the controlled certainty of a driver who knows exactly where his car's limits are.

The win came in his first season with Red Bull and announced him immediately as a driver who was more than a supporting act for Verstappen — he was a race winner in his own right, capable of taking victories at the moments the championship demanded them. Baku became, in the years that followed, a circuit he returned to consistently with strong results, as if the street circuit character and the tyre management demands of the long straight and heavy braking circuit made a particular match with his specific skills.