Incredible surprise for Perez and Red Bull, took pole and broke Ferrari 2-1

Sergio Perez pulled off the big surprise in Saudi Arabia’s qualifying tests. Red Bull’s Mexican with the times 1.28.200 managed to break his 1-2 Ferrari, as Leclerc starts second (1:28.225) and Saint (third: 1:28.402). In fact, the Mexican achieved his first pole.

Max Ferstappen, who hasn’t been feeling well, will start from fourth. Mercedes weren’t in the mood at Jeddah either as Russell will start sixth while Lewis Hamilton is already ruled out of Q1. The process was marked by Mick Schumacher’s accident, which gave cause for concern, but in the end everything is fine.

But let’s see what happened from the beginning. The red flag came early in the first Q after a Latifi tete-a-tete crashed into a barrier. At that moment, Magnussen and Schumacher were the fastest. However, the two Ferraris managed to return to the top spots ahead of the finale in the first part. The big surprise was of course Hamilton’s exclusion from Q1.

The Briton clocked a time of 1:30.343 and stayed 16th after being ousted by Lance Stroll. A bad result for Mercedes. Chunoda (mechanical problem), Latifi, Hulkenberg and Albon were also absent.

We had a second red flag in Q2, which was also a concern. The process broke off five minutes before the finale when Mick Schumacher collided heavily with the crash barriers. The ambulance quickly pulled up to him while the Haas driver got out of his car too late. Finally, a little later, the American team announced that he was conscious and was taken to the hospital as a precaution, disassembling his car in two.

After just over an hour, and with the track sufficiently cleaned, the process resumed. Saint and Leclerc were the fastest and showed their intentions, followed by the two Red Bulls. Stroll, Schumacher, Zhou, Ricciardo and Norris were left out.

In the early attempts of Q3, Saint was slightly quicker than his teammate (+0.044). Ferstappen appeared to be struggling with his tires while Perez was in slightly better shape. After returning from the pits, Leclerc did a very good hot lap and defeated his teammate.

The Mexican took care of changing the dates. Perez made a terrible comeback and with a really fast lap (1.28.200) edged the two Ferraris off the lead when he was 0.025 seconds faster. The Red Bull driver thus celebrated the first pole of his career.