After Verstappen took the lead over pole-sitter Charles Leclerc in the early stages of the race, the Mexican took advantage of a pit stop under the safety car to take the lead.

Leclerc led Verstappen on the starting line and was able to maintain a narrow lead with the two-time champion as he offered no DRS in the opening laps.

But at the end of the third lap, Verstappen easily passed the Ferrari driver and took the lead heading into the first corner of the fourth lap, thanks to the huge speed advantage of the DRS-enabled Red Bull.

Leclerc was quickly out of bounds and soon became the easy choice for Perez, who immediately began chasing Verstappen in an effort to secure his second career victory at the Baku circuit.

Perez had honed into Verstappen’s DRS range, but the race was interrupted to halt the sprint champion’s progress when Nyck de Vries hit his front left wheel on the inside wall at Turn 6 and came to a halt on the track.

Verstappen pitted in response, but the appearance of the safety car on lap 11, as the bailiffs tried to clear the AlphaTauri where de Vries was trapped, ensured a somewhat wrong call time on his garage side – the safety car as Verstappen left the pit lane Appeared.

This gave Perez and Leclerc the chance to make a cheaper pitstop under the safety car, and once they had collected the new hard tyres, they could come out of the pit lane ahead of Verstappen.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB19, Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23, the rest of the field on the grid

Photography: Andrew Ferraro / motorsport pictures

Although Leclerc tried to test Perez at the restart and held onto the lead, he couldn’t prevent Verstappen from passing at Turn 3 and finishing second.

But Perez had already broken the DRS range, which crucially ensured that Verstappen could not use the powerful rear wing on his team-mates.

Perez and Verstappen then went head-to-head, and a tug-of-war ensued for the fastest lap – but the gap began to slowly tilt towards Perez, especially when Verstappen began to complain about the lack of balance between his differential and engine braking.

By the end of lap 36, Perez clocked a lap time of 1:44, with Verstappen still stuck at 1:45 to help the Guadalajara-born driver seal the lead That stretched to 2.5 seconds – two laps later, as Perez continued, breaking the three-second mark of his impressive stride.

Perez held on to the lead, widening the gap to 3.6 seconds, but lost 0.6 seconds to Verstappen two laps into his attempt to pass Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo, forcing him to build up with another series of quick laps the following lap. his defense.

The gap between the two topped out at 3.7 seconds, which Perez thought was enough to secure victory – before starting to back off to cross the finish line by 2.1 seconds for his second victory of 2023.

Seeking consolation, Verstappen started looking for the fastest lap point; although the defending champion did set the fastest lap, Fernando Alonso temporarily stole the points until Verstappen hit a 1m A score of 44.474.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB19, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB19

Photography: Andy Horn / motorsport pictures

But Alonso was undeterred, adding two-tenths quicker to his fellow two-time champion to add to his points tally as he tried to hunt down Leclerc.

By the end, Alonso was 0.8s behind Leclerc, missing out on third for the fourth time in a row, as Monaco managed to shake off the Ferrari’s greater tire degradation to ensure he could turn pole position into a podium.

Alonso made up for lost ground on the restart after a bold move from the inside of Carlos Sainz at Turn 4 earlier, with Sainz trailing him after several televised discussions of the strategy compatriot 23.4 seconds.

Lewis Hamilton beat Lance Stroll for sixth, while George Russell – after a solid start to the race – trailed his team-mate and the Aston Martin driver at the restart and struggled Keep in touch with the leading two.

The Briton opted instead to recall and install soft tyres, taking the fastest lap point away from Alonso.

Lando Norris, who sat behind Nico Hulkenberg for most of the race, did a good job on the hard tyres, but eventually overtook the Haas driver and moved up to points – when also late Esteban Ocon called Ninth on the penultimate lap.

That gave Yuki Tsunoda the point to ensure AlphaTauri could double his points total for the season – 2.6 seconds ahead of Oscar Piastri.

F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix results: