Saudi Arabia Formula 1 GP: Perez wins in Jeddah, Verstappen second with a terrible race

Red Bull’s superiority at the beginning of the year was also confirmed in Saudi Arabia. Sergio Perez was the one who saw the checkered flag for the first time in Jeddah.

Behind him was Max Verstappen, the Dutchman finished second although he started from 15th place. On the podium for the second consecutive race was Fernando Alonso, with the FIA ​​recovering his original penalty and celebrating his 100th podium of his career.

The race: Fernando Alonso passed Sergio Perez at the start to stay four laps ahead of the Mexican, who reclaimed the lead on his fastest RB19 when DRS was on.

Behind Russell, who finished third in the Mercedes W14, Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin managed to overtake Carlos Sainz and the Ferrari SF-23 for fourth place. It stayed in the top five for the next ten laps, with Stroll making his first pit stop ahead of everyone else, covered by Saint’s undercut.

Meanwhile, Leclerc and Verstappen – with Stroll’s pit entrance – had moved up from 12th and 15th to 5th and 6th respectively. On lap 16, Ferrari asked Sainz to change tires to cover for Stroll, which he did, and a lap later Leclerc – now under threat from Verstappen.

But seconds later, a mechanical problem in Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin AMR23 forced the Canadian to pull over the track and bring out the safety car. Ferrari were extremely unlucky with the timing of their pit stops as everyone in front of them used the safety car to make their own pit stops.

Saints and Leclerc fell behind the Red Bulls, Alonso’s Aston Martin and the Mercedes and after the race restarted – when the safety car broke out – they were no longer able to keep up with the latter’s pace.

From fourth, Verstappen had no trouble overtaking the slower Mercedes of Russell and Alonso’s Aston Martin to move into second place – some 5 minutes behind leader Perez.

At the time it looked like the Dutchman had his sights set on victory given his superior speed over Perez over the past two weeks. But the Mexican didn’t make the slightest mistake, maintained a constantly furious pace and never let his distance to Max fall below 4” until the checkered flag.

Meanwhile, further back, Hamilton risked running on the medium tire by pitting under the safety car – unlike the other front runners who opted for the hard. This allowed the seven-time champion to pass Saint and get close to his counterpart Russell.

However, Russell’s defense and Hamilton’s attack didn’t result in awkward developments for Mercedes, until now Lewis reduced his pace to protect his softer tires and ensure he made it to the finish.

At the same time, Alonso managed to increase his safety margin on Russell, marginally increasing over 5” until the end, to protect himself from the looming possibility of a new penalty related to the execution of the first over by the team of, at the pit stop of the Spaniard.

But the marshals saw things differently: they issued a 10-minute penalty to Aston Martin and Alonso after the podium ceremony because one of the mechanics interfered with the AMR23 before the Spaniard’s 5-minute penalty was up. As a result, the Spaniard dropped to 4th place (as he was 11” behind fifth-placed Hamilton) and Russell officially took third place on the podium with hindsight.

Further back, Saith and Leclerc in the two Ferraris fought a lonely battle in 6th and 7th place and could not threaten Hamilton – although they remained 4” to the Englishman. Aside from the unfortunate timing of their pit stops, the Scuderia were disappointing tonight as they had the worst lap pace of the top four teams.

And that even on a track with much less rough asphalt than Bahrain, which puts much less stress on the tyres. And also on a track with very long straights and many fast corners, which Ferrari claims to have improved significantly this year with the SF-23.

Alpine was the leading team in the battle for middle power as Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly had their hands on a much more efficient A523 than in Bahrain and finished 8-9 ahead of Haas’ Kevin Magnussen who made a nice pass towards the end Alpha scoring Tauris Yuki Tsunoda rounds out the top ten.

It’s worth noting that Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas unexpectedly found himself at the bottom of the leaderboard behind McLaren’s Lando Norris. In fact, the England team found themselves in a difficult position as debutant Oscar Piastri threatened Norris in the final laps and managed to pass him before moving up to 15th by also passing Logan Sargeants Williams.

After the first two Formula One GPs of the year in Arabia, Bahrain and tonight in Jeddah, the sport heads east for its third round of the year, the Australian GP on April 2nd.