Four laps before the end of this race in Jeddah, Max Verstappen tried for the third time. But this time he had learned something new. Unlike the two previous attempts, this time he chose the optimal moment for his attack. Only on the long straight, when the pursuer is allowed to flatten the rear wing, did he shoot past Charles Leclerc. In the grandstands, the Dutchmen who had traveled to Saudi Arabia jumped off their seats a little prematurely, because it wasn’t over yet. Leclerc fought his way up again, in the slipstream, and just before the finish line he tried to counterattack. He started to overtake, but was a few meters behind – and the world champion celebrated his first victory in the second race. This time he had defeated Leclerc.
Verstappen against Leclerc, it was the new edition of the duel that the chief drivers from Red Bull and Ferrari fought a week ago in the final phase of the season opener in Bahrain. With two crucial differences: This time Verstappen stayed in front, this time the fuel flow in his racing car did not fail. And so a duel is already looming on the horizon, a new dualism that is likely to characterize the next 21 races. This time, behind the two 24-year-olds, their teammates made it across the line: Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari, Sergio Perez in the Red Bull.
And the silver arrows? Lost again – George Russell was fifth, Lewis Hamilton only tenth after a completely screwed up qualification.
“It was a great race,” said Verstappen: “In the end you could see that we had a little better pace. In the end, we started the season well.” And Leclerc was also satisfied: “I absolutely enjoyed it. It was tough racing, but always fair.”
When the subscription world champion Mercedes entered, neither the chassis nor the engine currently meet the requirements
There was more talk this weekend about the chaotic situation at the track in Jeddah than about the sport. The coastal course on the Red Sea had already demonstrated its risky architecture at its premiere in November. There were two race interruptions, as well as a rear-end collision involving Hamilton at Verstappen. When the racing circus returned to Jeddah a few months later, a rocket hit a very nearby oil depot as a welcome, so to speak. It was fired by the Houthi rebels with whom Saudi Arabia is at war in neighboring Yemen to the south.
Mick Schumacher’s car was completely demolished after his violent accident – fortunately nothing happened to him.
(Photo: Clive Mason/Getty Images)
And after Formula 1 did not leave, Mick Schumacher crashed into a concrete wall in qualifying at 250 km/h. The high curbs had become his undoing after entering an S-curve too quickly. He was unharmed but spent the night in hospital as a precaution. And his racing car was so destroyed that Team Haas was only able to send driver Kevin Magnussen into the race, who finished fifth this time in Bahrain and finished ninth.
The pursuit of the times brought two surprises: Perez, known and loved as a second force at Red Bull, snatched his first pole position in his 215th Grand Prix; not only was he faster than Leclerc and Sainz in the Ferraris, he was nimbler than fourth-placed teammate Verstappen. Even stranger was the performance of Hamilton, who complained about an “undrivable” company car after a risky vote on his Silver Arrow and decided to qualify in 15th place. George Russell’s sixth place didn’t make up for that either. When the subscription world champion entered, neither the chassis nor the engine met the high demands, the performance was “unacceptable”, complained team manager Toto Wolff. Only the performance of Yuki Tsunoda’s engine was guaranteed to be even worse, his Alpha Tauri stalled and did not make it onto the starting grid.
Due to a safety car phase, Perez’s early stop turned into a disaster
The traffic lights went out and Perez sped off as routinely as if this weren’t the first time in his life that he’d had the experience of occupying the most popular parking bay. He kept Leclerc at bay. Verstappen pushed past Sainz. Hamilton celebrated a small success by his standards much further behind, when he immediately conquered 14th place. Esteban Ocon fought a duel of the kind that, if at all, can only happen at the beginning of a season before there are enough results to establish a clear pecking order.
Ocon defended sixth place with a knife between his teeth, the stubborn Fernando Alonso overtook him at some point, the Frenchman tried in vain to counter. The beneficiary of the feud was Valtteri Bottas, who suddenly appeared in Ocon’s rear-view mirror. “Let them race,” said Alpine team boss Otmar Szafnauer, who is by nature blessed with a certain calmness, in a short interview at the side of the track. Bottas overtook Ocon, and that ended the clinch among garage neighbors.
At the top, Perez extended his gap. After six turns, he had already put a two-and-a-half-second buffer over Leclerc. After 16 laps, the leader was the first to come into the pits for a tire change, he had hard tires screwed on with which he would reach the finish line. However, because shortly afterwards Nicolas Latifi put his Williams in the gang and deployed the safety car, the early stop turned into a disaster for Perez – almost all other drivers now took the opportunity and headed for the pits at a slower racing pace.
Only Hülkenberg, Magnussen and Hamilton, who was now only two places behind his teammate Russell in seventh place, continued to drive on used rubber. And when Bernd Mayländer left the track after 21 laps with the safety car, the new order was: Leclerc, Verstappen, Perez, Sainz. So you thought very briefly.
Charles Leclerc was in front in Jeddah in the red Ferrari for a long time – but Max Verstappen finally got past.
(Photo: Antonin Vincent/PanoramiC/Imago)
Perez, however, immediately made way for Sainz to overtake after the race was cleared. A video study had convinced the race stewards that the Spaniard had previously been a hair’s breadth ahead of Perez at the relevant safety car line at the pit exit, which defines the order at the restart. Red Bull ordered a place swap with foresight.
The Silver Arrows sorted themselves behind the leading four, followed by Schumacher’s teammate Magnussen and Ocon, who both benefited from the fact that Alonso and Bottas retired with defects. When shortly afterwards Daniel Ricciardo rolled out and unfortunately parked his McLaren in such a way that the access to the pit lane was blocked, the virtual safety car was activated. Hamilton was unlucky because he couldn’t turn in time – he was only able to do that nine laps before the end, after which he put the Mercedes in twelfth place.
If Leclerc and Verstappen had not then delivered a furious finale, the second guest appearance of Formula 1 in the fast-paced concrete tunnel of Jeddah would have ended after two completely chaotic days with a comparatively uneventful racing Sunday.