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How was Valtteri Bottas so much slower than Sergio Perez in the Azerbaijan GP?

During the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend of the 2026 Formula 1 season, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas experienced a massive gap in pace that highlighted an unusual intra-team disparity. On Friday, Bottas finished over one and a half seconds slower than his teammate in qualifying, though his lap was impacted by a yellow flag.

Those struggles continued well into the grand prix itself, culminating in the Finnish driver falling more than forty-six seconds behind the other car by the time he made his opening pit stop on lap twenty-six.

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