Records were broken on the circuit in Jeddah! Verstappen stood on the podium for the 100th time. Ferrari’s youngest driver finishes on points

No one doubted victory by Max Verstappen before the start. But unlike last week, the rest of the field brought a number of surprises. Behind the duo of Red Bull drivers, Charles Leclerc made up for his troubles in Bahrain by taking third place. His teammate was ruled out of the weekend with appendicitis, while substitute Oliver Bearman finished 7th in his first race.

Four-time F2 race winner Oliver Bearman started his weekend with a fantastic performance in Formula 2 qualifying, taking pole position. The 18-year-old Prema driver never expected to rewrite Formula 1 history in Saudi Arabia.

Carlos Sainz’s health problems sent the reserve driver behind the wheel until the third free practice session. So Bearman jumped into the cockpit of the SF-24 and, with minimal preparation, plunged into qualifying. He narrowly missed out on Q3 in that race. But after starting from 11th place, he put in 50 faultless laps and deservedly scored six points for the Maranello team.

Bearman became Ferrari’s youngest ever driver at the Jeddah circuit, the first driver to make his F1 debut for the iconic stable since 1972 and the third youngest driver in Formula One history.

The fourth edition of the Saudi Arabian GP was not without a safety car

We had to wait until the second race for the first DNF of the season. The Bahrain Grand Prix was the 17th race in Formula 1 history in which all the drivers were classified. However, two drivers said a very early goodbye to Jeddah – Pierre Gasly completed just one lap before retiring with a gearbox failure. And Lance Stroll succumbed to pressure from Yuki Cunda on lap six, stumbling into the wall at Turn 22 and sliding into the tech-pro barrier.

LAP 7/50

Stroll into the barriers

He tells his Aston Martin team he's okay

⚠️ SAFETY CAR ⚠️#F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/5eaIiGItkw

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 9, 2024

Stroll’s car had to be extricated by crane by the track marshals, so the safety car took to the track and most of the field pitted for new tyres. Only Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton, Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Kuan-yu chose an alternative strategy. Norris thus took the lead of the race. And he denied Verstappen the chance of a second grand slam in a row.

After the race restarted, the penalty bag was ripped open. Pérez was given a five-second penalty by the stewards for an unsafe pit exit, when he drove into the path of Alonso. Magnussen received two ten-second penalties. The first for pinning Alonso against the wall and the second for gaining an advantage by driving off the track in a fight with Cunoda. On the other hand, Norris was left without a penalty after an examination.

Oscar Piastri will surely take away from Jeddah the impetus for a new nightmare. It will be Hamilton’s rear wing, which he followed closely for most of the race. His McLaren struggled terribly on the straights. Even with the help of DRS and slipstreaming, it barely matched the Mercedes’ top speed.

The orange monoposto briefly looked ahead of the silver arrow on lap 35. But Piastri misjudged the braking going into Turn 1, clipping Turn 2 and therefore immediately handing 5th place back to Hamilton. The Australian was only freed on lap 37 when Hamilton went for the mandatory tyre change.

Verstappen and Red Bull dominated

Another flawless race was scored by Red Bull. The Austrian stable didn’t take full points this time, with Leclerc taking the fastest lap of the race at the very end. Max Verstappen scored his 9th win in a row and will be looking to equal his own record of ten consecutive race wins in Australia.

Ferrari retained their position as the second best team. Leclerc lost only 5 seconds to Pérez. Fourth place Piastri crossed the line 13 seconds after the Monegasque.

In Bahrain, Aston Martin was behind the fastest four teams. However, Fernando Alonso put in a fantastic performance in Jeddah, scoring 10 points for 5th place.

The double champion was followed by a quartet of Brits – Russell, Bearman, Norris, Hamilton. The last point was taken by Nico Hülkenberg for the American Haas team.

Formula One now moves from the near east to the far east. After a stop in Australia, the Japanese Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix will be on the agenda. The queen of motorsport will return to Shanghai after a five-year hiatus.

Source: F1TV