Perez: I finally understand this car and how to drive it

After a tough, character-building weekend in Monaco, Perez has reset and after a solid start in FP1 with fourth place, albeit nearly half a second down on his pace-setting teammate Max Verstappen.

By the end of the afternoon, Perez found the sweetspot and topped the timesheets, a tenth up on the sister car and looking good for Saturday thanks to some solid homework since the last race in Monte Carlo.

Immediately after the FP2 session, Perez told media: "We have made very good progress. After Monaco, we did a very deep analysis and today it was like: I finally understand this car a bit more and how I need to drive it.

"I think this is the best Friday of the season. The most complete Friday in terms of data and how I feel in the car. We are definitely going to be in the mix."

And later Perez added in the team report: "Hopefully, we can get a good, clean lap in qualifying tomorrow which is when it matters, but we’ll still work hard tonight to improve and try to find some more lap time."

Indeed qualifying has been his Achilles heal and where Verstappen tends to raise his game substantially.

Although it is only FP2, it is still a rare occasion for the Dutchman to be slower than his teammate; he reported: "Performance-wise I think we had a great start to the weekend here in Baku. It was quite windy out there today which wasn’t easy for any of us, but it definitely makes things more interesting.

"In FP1 the car felt pretty decent, I was quite comfortable and then for FP2 we made a few changes to see if it was better but I don’t think it was, so we’ll look into that overnight and see what direction we will go for qualifying.

"So far I think we look pretty strong as a Team and I’m very happy with that so let’s see what we can do tomorrow," added Verstappen who leads the 2021 F1 championship standings by four points from Lewis Hamilton after five rounds.

Red Bull lead Mercedes by a single point and in the wake of day one in Baku, they have the opportunity to really land some solid blows this weekend in which the Formula 1 World Champions are looking genuinely troubled.