Max Verstappen
After everything that happened on Sunday, Max Verstappen didn’t really feel like attending the award ceremony. After the anthems and the handover of the trophies, the Dutchman left the party early. When asked about it, he said: “There was no champagne there, it wasn’t fun.” However, the thought of a winning photo with Lewis Hamilton should have been a lot less fun for him. He was on the podium where Verstappen would have liked to be: right at the top. Then as world championship leader he would have kept his points cushion and had better chances of his first title. In the hours before, he had tried to make up for the fact that the Mercedes was faster with hard driving, controversial maneuvers and vigorous defense.
In a nutshell: Mick Schumacher had an accident after ten of 50 laps, the race was interrupted, when restarting, Verstappen took the lead, and the race was interrupted again after further crashes. Ordered by the race management, Verstappen is moved backwards after a controversial maneuver, at the next start he comes back to first place, but is supposed to return the position to Hamilton because Verstappen had previously left the track without permission. When changing places there is confusion, Hamilton drives Verstappen into the rear, the excitement is enormous, Hamilton finally overtakes and wins. Verstappen remains second despite a ten-second penalty for delaying. “We’re talking more about penalties here than about racing,” said Verstappen later, angrily. “That’s not what I mean by Formula 1, but I have to come to terms with it.”
And now it is actually 369.5 to 369.5 in the overall ranking. The premier class will have its grand finale on December 12th in Abu Dhabi. It was the first time in 1974 when Clay Regazzoni and Emerson Fittipaldi started the last race of the season with equal points. “I think that’s really exciting for the championship and for F1 in general,” said Verstappen. If this title fight, which was exciting and heated until the end, leads to both being canceled at the end of the season, Verstappen would become world champion despite being equal on points because he won a Grand Prix more (9: 8) than Hamilton. Otherwise, the following applies: Whoever crosses the finish line before the other is a champion.
Lewis Hamilton
At Mercedes and Red Bull, the mood was heated for a long time. Who crossed the line in which scene? Who was to blame and when? Should there have been other punishments? At the end of the day, those involved discussed one thing in particular of various maneuvers: On lap 37, Max Verstappen left the track while overtaking Lewis Hamilton and was then ordered to let the British pass in order to avoid a penalty. The Dutchman slowed down, Hamilton drove close to him, wanted to pass and hit the Red Bull with the right side in the rear. If that had led to the failure of both drivers, the excitement would have been even greater.
“I’ve raced against a lot of drivers in my 28 years and got to know a lot of different characters,” said Hamilton. “There are a few at the very top who are over the limit. Rules don’t seem to apply to them or they don’t think about the rules.” And Verstappen, said the seven-time world champion, “surely exceeds the limit. I’ve avoided so many collisions with the guy.”
Red Bull assured that Verstappen had not willfully slowed down, the 24-year-old was looking for an explanation for the incident himself, Mercedes found it in the lack of information from Hamilton. At the time, he did not know that he would be let past – because the team had only found out about it shortly beforehand. “It may be that it was a total misunderstanding. Lewis didn’t know that he was allowed to pass,” said Mercedes Motorsport Director Toto Wolff, who now hopes for one thing above all: “There were enough warning shots today that hopefully it won’t escalate in Abu Dhabi Nobody can afford an end of the season in which the world championship fight does not take place on the racetrack. “
Mick Schumacher
Mick Schumacher set the stone rolling, so to speak. The regular start of the GP was almost boring, Hamilton drove out in front, the rest of the field behind. When Schumacher lost control of his car on the tenth of 50 laps and crashed violently into a track barrier after turn 22, he triggered the first interruption of the race. His Haas was so damaged that it had to be removed. The repair work on the wall could not be done so quickly that the safety car was sufficient – the red flag was waved, all cars drove back into the pit lane.
“I’m sorry,” the 22-year-old F1 newcomer radioed immediately after reporting that he was okay. Later on, Schumacher was very disappointed about this incident, which was not the first of this season, not only for sporting reasons, but also for financial reasons. Team boss Günther Steiner had already issued warnings that such damage would hit a small racing team like Haas harder than others.
Sebastian Vettel
Sebastian Vettel has recently become a political racing driver who shows his attitude and expresses criticism: on environmental, climate and human rights issues. He also wanted to set an example in Saudi Arabia. The 34-year-old wore his white sneakers with rainbow flags again to support the LGBTQ community – as he did in Hungary. On Thursday, he also held a kart race with eight Saudi Arabian women – in a country where women have only been allowed to drive cars since summer 2018. He wanted to draw attention to the positive change, it was about “celebrating that women are also allowed to take the wheel here, especially in a sport that is normally very much dominated by men”. Vettel encouraged her and revealed tricks like turning off your head and just following instinct.
When he made up positions in this sense with every restart on Sunday, it initially looked as if the four-time world champion could still make it into the points from 17th place on the grid. But first Yuki Tsunoda caught him, then there was also a collision with his former team-mate Kimi Raikkonen. After that, the Aston Martin lost too many parts and was too demolished. Vettel had to park his car in the box early. At least his conclusion was pointed. “What do you take with you from this race?” Was the question – the answer: “Nothing!”
Esteban Ocon
It was actually Esteban Ocon who was at the forefront in Saudi Arabia. The chaos after the Schumacher accident had brought the French from ninth place in the Alpine. Hamilton got off better at the restart, but he had to brake on the counterattack by Verstappen and so Ocon passed the seven-time world champion. As soon as the 25-year-old got used to a perspective that was rare for him, the race was interrupted again – because there was a crash in the back. After the back and forth on the radio between race management, Mercedes and Red Bull, Ocon was even first. Source chance!
In a car that is clearly inferior to the title competitor, he could not last long there. But he bravely maintained third place and was so close to the podium that it almost broke your heart when Valtteri Bottas pushed past him in the fast Mercedes on the last few meters towards the finish. “The car was exactly right, but we’re fighting in a different league than Mercedes. Losing third place seconds before the finish line is very frustrating,” said Ocon – but not without making an announcement. After his teammate Fernando Alonso’s third place in Qatar and now this result shows that Alpine could be dangerous in the future.
Michael Masi
The 42-year-old race director is possibly more in focus this season than he would like – but so much happens weekend after weekend that it needs the intervention of the Formula 1 referees. In Saudi Arabia there were scenes that the motorsport world will remember for a long time. After the second break in the race and the controversial counterattack by Max Verstappen on the attack by Lewis Hamilton, the lines between Michael Masi, Mercedes and Red Bull ran hot. Some asked for a penalty, others wanted to prevent it and then negotiations began like in a bazaar, which of course suited the venue.
If Red Bull voluntarily slipped into second place at the third start of the GP, there would be no penalty, Masi offered. Now Red Bull wanted to explore how far they could go. If Esteban Ocon took pole position, be there. “You have to go behind Hamilton!”, Masi then radioed. Red Bull asked for time to think about it and finally agreed. Had they not done that, the race stewards would have been involved. Before the interruption, the order was Verstappen, Ocon, Hamilton – after the radio haggling, Ocon, Hamilton, Verstappen. And the Saudi Arabia GP had one curiosity richer.
The Jeddah Corniche Circuit
Whether the Jeddah Corniche Circuit would really be ready for the race weekend was a question mark for a long time. But on the Thursday morning before the race, Fia race director Michael Masi was able to officially open the course after inspecting everything. The track was built in just nine months with the aim of creating the fastest street circuit in the world. “It was an impressive journey for everyone involved,” said Masi. The organizers in Saudi Arabia had only been awarded the contract a year ago, after which everything had to be done at top speed, until the end thousands of workers were busy getting the undertaking to its destination.
The route from Jeddah with its spectacular backdrop of the sea is now 6.174 kilometers long, making it the longest on the current calendar after Spa-Francorchamps. The fact that the track builders actually succeeded in making the lap passable extremely quickly, in combination with many bends but hardly any run-off zones, gave the drivers an inkling that it could be an eventful Sunday – and that’s how it turned out.