Premise: we don’t want to say bad words, so let’s clarify that the factor “C” stands for “Citizen”, il type of circuit that Perez is specializing in. Sergio is on his 6th career victory and 5 of these, the last 5, took place on street circuits.
The list is short: after Sakhir 2020, there was Baku 2021, Monaco and Singapore 2022, Jeddah and Baku 2023.
However, upon closer inspection, in all these races there was also another factor “C”, which, for the avoidance of doubt, we will call “Coincidence”if you want to give it another meaning, go ahead, this is the analysis, in a nutshell:
a Sakhir nel 2020 Verstappen went into the block to avoid Leclerc;
a Baku nel 2021 Verstappen punctured while leading;
a Singapore in 2022 Verstappen ran out of fuel in qualifying;
a Jeddah this year Verstappen broke an axle shaft in qualifying;
a Baku Verstappen found himself penalized by the intervention of the Safety Car after he took the pit lane as leader for the pit stop.
Finally we find ourselves then, and again, with 5 out of 6 wins influenced by the same factor: decidedly unfortunate events that took Verstappen away from the fight for victory. And now there’s another citizen, Miami: looking for an amulet for Verstappen.
The contradiction of Baku
It is something that has been repeated for some time now: pole Ferrari, vittoria Red Bull. It happened the last 6 times the Reds were on pole (France, Belgium, Italy, Singapore, Austin 2022; Baku 2023) and 10 times in the last 11 (in this interval they only won from pole in Great Britain last year ), but here in Baku the situation is truly paradoxical. In fact, Red Bull has won 4 times here without ever scoring pole, while Ferrari recorded 4 poles without ever winning (…and if we add the Sprint, it becomes a 5-0). It is a first time in the history of Formula 1: nNo team had scored 4 poles in a circuit without ever winning.