Perez enthused about return of Montreal's F1 race
The back-of-a-napkin health protocols and restrictions that have been a feature of federal and provincial pandemic response made any attempt to stage live sports something of a guessing game.
Hockey was allowed, then it wasn't. There were bubbles and capacity restrictions and nomadic baseball teams and soccer clubs forced into an impromptu all-canadian series.
Few events were as affected as the Grand Prix du Canada. Like the country's national golf and tennis opens, its Formula One race was wiped off the calendar for two consecutive years, with politicians not quite ready to allow international sporting events, and the border crossings they would necessitate, while still locking down much of everyday life.
But Montreal's Grand Prix is back. And in a curious twist, it returns as interest in the sport in both Canada and its southern neighbour is booming. The circus is back in town, giving a lot of Canadians their first look under the F1 big top on home soil.
“It's a race that I really missed,” says Sergio Perez, who drives for Red Bull Racing and is second in the world championship standings behind teammate Max Verstappen, the reigning champ.
“It's nice being back after all these crazy years with the pandemic. It's always a great race, great city.”
Perez, the 32-year-old Mexican, is in the thick of the storylines this season, as new regulations that forced teams to build entirely new cars have shuffled the grid more than a bit. Red Bull remains among the top teams, but this year they are fighting with Ferrari, the resurgent giant, instead of Mercedes-amg, which had been dominant for years behind Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, but this season finds itself with something of a clunker. The rebuilt Mercedes bounces up and down due to airflow issues — called “porpoising” — and Hamilton was rattled around so much at last weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix that he was initially a doubt for Montreal (he has since said he will race at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where he won his first of 103 F1 victories in 2007).
Ferrari has at times looked like the strongest team, with Monaco's Charles Leclerc winning two of the first three races and six of eight pole positions, but he's been a DNF in the last two rounds with mechanical failures. That has allowed Red Bull to win the last five races, including one from Perez.
“It is great to be with such a team,” says the man known as Checo. “Not only that it's a winner car, but it's the way that Red Bull goes into racing.”
The team, part of the Austrian sports-drink empire, is all about winning, he says.
“They have such a mentality within the brand that really transforms into every part of the team, into the engineers, into the mechanics. Everyone has that vibe that I haven't experienced anywhere else to be honest.”
That success even led into a spot of controversy last month at
the Spanish Grand Prix, where Perez twice was told to let his teammate pass him as the Red Bulls and Ferraris duelled at the front. Verstappen took the win.
It's not unusual for teams to give one driver priority and Verstappen, the 24-year-old Dutchman, is clearly the chosen one at Red Bull, but Perez says there is no formal arrangement that says he must always cede position.
“We had a little issue in Barcelona where we could have done a better job with the strategies, but at the end of the day, it's the same (for us),” he says. “We both want to do as good a job as possible.” The results in Monaco, two races ago, would seem to confirm that, with Perez taking top spot on the podium and Verstappen in second place.
That win was just the third of Perez's F1 career, which has followed a unique trajectory.
He first claimed a seat in 2011 — there are only 20 of them — and drove for four teams, one of which went bankrupt, before finally winning his first race in 2020. He set a record for most starts before a win, at 190. Red Bull came calling the following season, and this year he set another record by claiming his first pole position in his 215th qualifying attempt.
Spending all those years in mid-tier teams has made being a late career front-runner all the more satisfying.
“I think being in Formula One, it's a big thing already, but it's also great being with a top team,” Perez says. “Enjoying some successes is what you are here for, you know, what I've worked for all these years. So, I'm very happy to be at Red Bull.”
If he was well-established as a journeyman before, he's one of the stars of the sport now. As we speak on Wednesday night, it's through one of his sponsor-partners, Patron tequila.
And so, is Patron mixed with Red Bull a thing?
“I don't know,” he says, with a slight smile. More of a Patronon-ice guy, then.
The success, naturally, gives Perez confidence heading into the weekend, and the return to the track on the island, where he earned his second career podium with a third-place finish in 2012.
“Obviously, that's the goal again this week,” he says. “But higher.”
Evidently, Checo has a taste for it now.