Red Bull has crushed its competition again! Pérez dominates Saudi Arabia VC, Alonso gets a post-race penalty

As part of the second race of this season, Formula 1 visited Saudi Arabia at the Jeddah City Circuit. After a flawless performance, Sergio Pérez took the win. Max Verstappen finished second after a thrilling drive from 15th place. After Fernando Alonso’s post-race penalty, third place went to George Russell.

After the start, Fernando Alonso briefly celebrated after starting from second place. He overtook Sergio Pérez at the first corner and took the race lead. Before the end of the second lap, however, he received a five-second penalty for a bad start.

The Spanish racer held first place only until the start of the fourth lap, when he had no chance to keep the lightning-fast Red Bull with DRS behind him on the start straight.

Both Mclaren drivers had a terrible start. Oscar Piastri headed straight to the pits after the opening lap to replace his damaged front wing after contact with Pierre Gasly. A lap later, Lando Norris also had to replace his front wing.

After lap 10, Pérez pulled away from Alonso and almost immediately built up a four-second lead. Verstappen, too, was showing tremendous speed in the second Red Bull RB19. Just 15 laps were enough for the reigning champion to move from 15th to sixth.

On lap 18, Lance Stroll shut down his car. The safety car was called to the track, which played well into the hands of Verstappen and Alonso.

The Dutch driver returned to the track in fourth place after a pit stop. Alonso again used the safety car to mitigate the effect of his penalty. After his tyre change, he held on to second place ahead of George Russell.

Pérez of Mexico handled the restart flawlessly. He left Alonso and Russell far behind at the mercy of his teammate. The latter did not argue with his rivals and after three laps he had only Pérez in front of him.

But the Mexican Red Bull driver set an excellent pace and kept Verstappen more than four seconds behind him. With more than ten laps to go, Verstappen began to complain of driveshaft problems, which he had also encountered earlier in the weekend.

The team was unable to resolve these during the race, whereupon the two-time world champion’s stunning pursuit run ended in second place. Pérez once again confirmed that he is thriving on city circuits. Of his five wins to date, four have come on this type of circuit.

An interesting duel between Júki Cunoda and Kevin Magnussen. After several attempts, the Haas driver fought his way past the Japanese racer to give his team its first point of the season.

The pairing of Russell and Lewis Hamilton brought important points to the Constructors’ Cup. The Mercedes drivers had a relatively uneventful race, finishing fourth and fifth respectively.

But Russell moved up to third after the race. In fact, Alonso received a ten-second penalty for incorrectly completing a five-second penalty from the start of the race and dropped to a final fourth place.

The British racer did not physically make the podium, but added his ninth career podium to his statistics.

Charles Leclerc was frustrated with his team’s performance. Once again he complained about communication errors that caused him to lose a place to Hamilton. The Monegasque crossed the line seventh, seven seconds behind sixth-placed Carlos Sainz.

Alpine can rejoice in its 6 points. Both Ocon and Gasly did a great job throughout the race and easily took eighth and ninth place.

On the other hand, Alpine’s rivals from last season, McLaren, must be feeling the pinch. Piastri, in his first completed race in Formula One, only achieved 15th place. Norris’ performance was good enough for 17th.

The Saudi Arabian GP was certainly a disappointment for Williams. After a fantastic performance in Bahrain, where Alexander Albon scored one point, the British team did not even come close to scoring points. Albon even had to retire from the race after a brake failure.

Red Bull takes a 49-point lead into the next Australian Grand Prix. The battle for second place is already a little closer. Thanks to Alonso’s penalty, Mercedes has moved ahead of Aston Martin into second place, with just six points separating the two teams.

Verstappen retains the lead in the drivers’ championship, thanks to setting the fastest lap of the race. He now has one more point than his teammate.

Source: F1 TV