by Linus O'Howell
Max Verstappen dominated once again to take a 9th-straight Grand Prix victory whilst teammate Sergio Perez completed a Red Bull 1-2 ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
The Most Notable Moments
At the start, Max Verstappen got off the line well to cover Charles Leclerc off whilst Lando Norris seemingly jumped the start. However, Norris didn’t receive a penalty of any kind and I’m honestly a bit confused as to why not.
📸 Unstoppable.
After Pierre Gasly retired on the opening lap due to a gearbox issue, the course of the race changed on Lap 7 when Lance Stroll hit the wall hard at Turn 22, bringing out the Safety Car. Nearly all of the drivers pitted, but the likes of Norris, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Hulkenberg, and Zhou Guanyu all decided against stopping. Also, during all of this, Sergio Perez was given a 5-second time penalty for an unsafe release, but that wouldn’t ultimately hurt his finishing position.
This meant the race restarted with Norris in the lead and despite a decent effort, Verstappen was able to get through and back into the lead (we never really saw him again) whilst Perez and Leclerc were also able to clear Hamilton. The same could not be said for Oscar Piastri who spent a long time being frustrated behind the back of the Mercedes of Hamilton, and it ultimately cost Piastri any chance he had of finishing on the podium.
📸 Norris led after the Safety Car.
Elsewhere, Kevin Magnussen was doing everything in his power to keep cars behind him in order for his teammate Hulkenberg to pit and come out in a points-paying position. Whilst Magnussen did do a good job and this was a brilliant team call from Haas, Magnussen definetly overstepped the mark a few times, whether that be overtaking Yuki Tsunoda off the track or putting Alex Albon in the wall. 'K-Mag' ultimately received 20 seconds worth of penalties, but it was probably worth it given Hulkenerg was able to score an important point.
📸 The battle from Magnussen down brought cars close on track.
Towards the end of the race, the focus was on whether Oliver Bearman could stay ahead of fellow Brits Norris and Hamilton. To start with, it looked nearly impossible for Bearman to stay ahead, but Bearman showed an incredible amount of pace and consistency towards the end to stay ahead of his opponents to take a fantastic P7 in his debut race.
Drivers who Impressed
There were two drivers that really impressed me into today’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and the first one is Max Verstappen. Max looks unstoppable right now and I can’t really see how anyone’s going to stop him.
The other driver I was super impressed by was Oliver Bearman and that’s because I thought Ollie drove a superb race and I’m so, so impressed with him finishing P7.
📸 Ollie Bearman embraces his father post race.
I also thought Sergio Perez can be really happy with P2, Charles Leclerc and Fernando Alonso got the maximum out of their cars respectively, and Oscar Piastri and Nico Hulkenberg also had really good days.
Drivers who struggled
There was one driver that really didn’t impress me today and that driver was Lance Stroll. Lance made a silly error today and he’ll need to make sure that he bounces back in Australia in two weeks time. I also thought Daniel Ricciardo had a pretty poor day whilst Kick Sauber had a pretty awful day that won’t leave either Valtteri Bottas nor Zhou Guanyu very happy!
📸 Lance Stroll endured a DNF on the Saudi weekend.
Overall Race Results
1) Max Verstappen: Winner 2) Sergio Perez: +13.643 (5 second penalty) 3) Charles Leclerc: +18.639 4) Oscar Piastri: +32.007 5) Fernando Alonso: +35.759 6) George Russell: +39.936
7) Oliver Bearman: +42.679 8) Lando Norris: +45.708 9) Lewis Hamilton: +47.391 10) Nico Hulkenberg: +76.996 11) Alex Albon: +88.354
12) Kevin Magnussen: +105.737 (20 second penalty) 13) Esteban Ocon: +1 Lap 14) Yuki Tsunoda: +1 Lap 15) Logan Sargeant: +1 Lap
16) Daniel Ricciardo: +1 Lap 17) Valtteri Bottas: +1 Lap 18) Zhou Guanyu: +1 Lap
DNF: Lance Stroll (Crash), Pierre Gasly (Gearbox Issue)
📸 Formula Motorsport Limited, Red Bull Content Pool, Aston Martin F1 Team.
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