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SAUDI ARABIAN GP – Max Verstappen dominates to take a ninth consecutive win thirteen seconds ahead of Sergio Perez

Testing & Race Reports

Max Verstappen has beaten his teammate Sergio Perez to take a dominant victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The three-time champion once again like last week in Sakhir drove a steady and controlled race beating his teammate by thirteen seconds, as Red Bull look to be unbeatable.

Verstappen made a brilliant start opening up the gap after sweeping past Charles Leclerc into the first corner, which allowed Perez to pass the Ferrari into Turn Four and cerement a Red Bull one-two. Though Perez couldn’t pull away as much as his teammate once DRS was enabled. It may be race two, but Verstappen has a fifteen-point championship lead over Perez.

The Mexican did manage to close the gap and pass Leclerc, but the Ferrari driver failed to close the gap to under ten seconds to steal second from Perez. Perez had been given a penalty following an unsafe release at his first stop. But it was a good effort by Leclerc to try to hold Perez behind him before the superior pace won out allowing the Red Bull threw.

Verstappen said “Overall, a fantastic weekend for the whole team and myself. I felt really good with the car and it was the same in the race. The last stint was a bit longer than we would have liked but with the Safety Car you had to go for it.”

Perez, added “We definitely made some good progress. I just think it was a shame we qualified out of the front row because we had a great start. Unfortunately, Charles really kept it together and we couldn’t get through. It was a nice fight. And later on it was quite a compromised race with the Safety Car there so early, it was a very long stint on the hard tyres.”

Leclerc said, “We had quite good pace because we had the fastest lap at the end and I got helped by DRS. Overall, the feeling was pretty good. It was a bit of a boring race because Red Bull were a bit too quick and behind we had a gap.

After two races and a ninth consecutive win, Verstappen already has a fifteen-point championship lead over Perez and looks well on target for a fourth consecutive drivers’ title. At this rate, he is looking as if he could even break all the win records he set last year.

Leclerc underlined how good Red Bull look on track as he was eleven seconds behind Perez. Oscar Piastri had spent much of the race battling with Lewis Hamilton to finish fourth, the Mercedes driver running long into the race and his late stop dropping him down to ninth. Piastri finished a distant fourth fifteen seconds behind Leclerc and ahead of Fernando Alonso by three and a half seconds.

Alonso’s teammate Lance Stroll had prompted the only pit stops when he crashed at Turn Twenty-Two, going straight on into the barriers outside Turn 23, which meant the safety car was called into action.

All the leaders pitted to exchange their starting mediums for hards, with Red Bull able to double-stack its cars and maintain track position over Leclerc, who in any case had the longest stop as Piastri and Alonso briefly came by. That allowed Norris to briefly lead.

The battle with Hamilton may have cost Piastri the opportunity to challenge Leclerc in the closing stages. While Red Bull look set to dominate this season the race backed up the theory that behind it is going to be a very tight battle behind for second, and if Red Bull run into difficulty it could be anyone who picks up the pieces.

George Russell won the fight between the Englishman, the Mercedes driver finished three seconds ahead of Oliver Bearman, and ahead of both Lando Norris and Hamilton. The four of them fought hard but fair as Bearman hung on ahead of the McLaren by three seconds.

But what cost Norris and Hamilton was not pitting under an early safety car and pitting with ten laps to go. Norris had been given a warning for weaving in an attempt to break Hamilton’s tow. But their own fight meant they were unable to find a way past the Essex boy allowing Bearman to score the best debut since Felipe Nasr in Melbourne 2015.

Bearman  a little disappointed by the outcome, but he, too, seemed to get the big picture. He said “Obviously not the circumstances I would like to make my F1 debut, and I wish the best to Carlos and hope he recovers well. But nonetheless it is a fantastic opportunity and hopefully tomorrow (in the race) I can make up for today.”

“I didn’t have the time to get nervous or overthink it. It was so late I had to focus on getting up to speed and catch up on lost time. Missing out on Thursday made my life a bit more difficult. On Monday I will feel it and be quite proud. At the moment I am just trying to maximise and bring the team some points but I’m sure on Monday I will step back and punch myself and be quite proud.”

Norris had at one stage led the race, but a double stop on lap nine cost him net lead to Verstappen and Hamilton, who he then fended off. He would have likely lost more time and track position to the seven-time champion if McLaren had opted to double stack under the safety car.

Bearman has been the story of the weekend, drafted into replace Carlos Sainz after the Spaniard underwent an appendectomy, became at eighteen years old the youngest British driver in F1 history, and the third youngest ever.

A drive which could lead to him being another player in the 2025 driver market, with thirteen drivers out of contract at the end of the year. Bearman was given praise by Hamilton who will be in the Ferrari seat next year, Hamilton’s teammate Russell.

Nico Hulkenberg was tenth as the Haas driver gave further evidence that the US-owned team has resolved its tyre management issues. The German driver stopped the British rounding out the bottom five points positions as he finished comfortably ahead of British-Thai Alex Albon.

Albon splitting the two Haas’s with the Williams driver finished eighteen seconds ahead of Kevin Magnussen. It was a difficult race for Magnussen the Dane was given two ten second penalties, one for causing a collision the other for running wide and gaining an advantage.

But it has been a solid start to the season for Haas, who expected to struggle at the back however the question is when upgrades come can they avoid going backwards like they have done throughout their time in the sport?

Esteban Ocon was the lead lapped car, ahead of both RB’s of Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo who were split by the second Williams of Logan Sargeant with the two Sauber’s last of the runners. Valtteri Bottas finished ahead of teammate Guanyu Zhou.

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