A great battle for the victory, only 13 riders finished the race! How did the Saudi Grand Prix end?

A collision, a safety car or an absolutely awesome battle for the win in the last laps of the race! That was the Saudi Grand Prix at the Jeddah circuit. McLaren scored their first points of the season, and seven drivers also retired from the race.

Due to a major accident in qualifying for the Saudi Grand Prix, Mick Schumacher did not start the race, and although he suffered no serious injuries, his Haas was damaged to the extent that he was unable to enter the race.

However, apart from the German racer, Yuki Cunoda did not start the race as his AlphaTauri monopost was struggling with power unit problems.

After all five lights went out, Sergio Pérez managed to hold on to first place, taking the first pole position of his career in Saturday’s qualifying. He became the first Mexican driver to achieve this feat.

During the opening laps, Lewis Hamilton worked his way up the order. The seven-time world champion complained, especially during qualifying, about the poor set-up of his Mercedes and also about the great difficulty associated with understeer.

After a few laps had been completed, the fans witnessed some beautiful on-track battles between the Alpine drivers and Valtteri Bottas in the Alfa Romeo. Pérez, Leclerc, Verstappen, Sainz, Russell, Alonso, Ocon, Bottas, Magnussen, Gasly – that was the order after the first ten laps of the Saudi Grand Prix.

The first pit-stop came on the ninth lap, when Daniel Ricciardo in the McLaren came to his mechanics and swapped the medium specification tyres for the hardest ones marked in white.

It should be noted – all the other drivers also ditched the medium tyres during the race and opted to switch to the so-called hard tyres.

However, the order was disrupted by an accident involving Nicholas Latifi, who crashed his Williams on the exit of the last corner. Yellow flags were waved on the track and the race directors called out the safety car.

Naturally, a number of drivers took advantage of the accident to pit stop and it was here that something happened that Carlos Sainz later reported to his team and which made its way to race HQ for review.

A fight broke out between Sainz and Pérez as they exited pit lane. The former, however, was first to the decisive white line on the exit of the pits and was thus entitled to the higher position. But the thirty-two-year-old Mexican pushed him off the track, whereupon Sainz had to be allowed back in front of him according to the rules.

Over the next few laps the race settled down somewhat in terms of its pace, with the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh laps of the Saudi Grand Prix bringing more excitement. Three drivers in a row retired due to loss of power and power unit problems!

Specifically, Fernando Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas have ended their participation in the second round of the 2022 season.

Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hülkenberg took advantage of the virtual safety car (before the race directors closed the pit entrance), wearing medium-hard tyres marked yellow.

Hamilton, on the other hand, was unable to make it to his mechanics before the pit lane closed and was thus condemned to a stop under green flags. Needless to say, this caused him to drop significantly down the order, specifically to twelfth place!

Leclerc, Verstappen, Sainz, Pérez, Russell, Ocon, Norris, Gasly, Stroll, Albon – that was the Saudi Grand Prix order after the 41st circuit.

In the final laps, the fans watched a battle on multiple fronts – Hamilton fighting his way up the order, Lando Norris in the McLaren battling fiercely with Esteban Ocon for sixth place.

The most watched battle, however, was at the front of the race, where Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen fought very hard.

In the end, it was the latter who emerged victorious. Verstappen finally got ahead of Leclerc on the penultimate lap of the race, although even in the last corners the Ferrari driver was dangerously close.

So this is the final standings for the Saudi Grand Prix. One extra championship point for the fastest lap of the race, worth 1:40.958, belongs to Leclerc, and the 24-year-old Monegasque was also named best driver of the day.

“It was a great race. It wasn’t easy, but we had good pace and I’m happy for a good start to the season. In any case, the battle in the last laps was very tough. The new monoblocs make it easier to stay behind other cars, but it’s harder to plan for overtaking,” Verstappen said in a post-race interview.

“I really enjoyed this race. It was a tough battle, but if every race is like this, it will be great. I went to the absolute limit and either my car or Max’s car had a completely different set-up and it was hard to keep up with him,” Leclerc said of the Saudi Grand Prix.

Source: F1 TV