Saudi Arabia: New Champion
Fastest Street circuit
It was a speedy and quick race today, and I’m here to tell you all about it! Welcome to this week’s race breakdown!
We have a new championship leader, Oscar Piastri! I mentioned in my Japan post how we shouldn’t forget about Piastri, as here he is snatching away the leading championship place from his teammate Lando Norris. On top of that, he’s also the winner of today's race!
It was a tight knit battle from the start between him and Max Verstappen, with Max starting P1 and Oscar P2. Lights out and away they went down into turn 1, where the first error occurred as Verstappen had ran wide, cutting across the apex and overtaking Piastri off the track. This incident was noted by race control as essentially Oscar had claimed that corner way before Max even had the chance to. Now, Max wasn’t too happy with this, saying he was “forced off” and with Oscar having “no intention to make that corner”. Listen, we all watched what happened and I have to say that Max is at fault here. This could have easily been resolved if he had given the position back to Oscar, however Max deemed he did nothing wrong which resulted in the stewards giving him a 5-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. He had completed the penalty during a later pit stop. In my opinion, if Max gave the position back then he would’ve definitely had a chance of winning today's race. A comment made by former F1 driver Jolyon Palmer was “Max always forces the stewards to make a decision, rather than cede the place.” What do you think about this? With Max’s penalty, he was determined to make up the lost positions as he was hunting down the drivers, speeding past them and doing overtake after overtake.
Now, not all was good for Max’s teammate, Yuki Tsunoda. He had made contact with his front right wheel clipping the back left wheel of Pierre Gasly’s, sending them both into the barriers. A safety car was deployed due to this. Pierre definitely got the worst of it, it seemed, having his car taken away, back into Alpine's garage, and retiring from today's race. I definitely thought that Yuki would be able to continue the race as he slowly drove down the track, however as he arrived into the pits, it was clear he was also retiring from the race. Let’s hope this little mishap doesn’t affect Yuki’s Red bull seat. We all know how they are with the second driver.
Moving back onto McLaren and Lando Norris, as he was making up positions today due to his P10 start. A mini overtake battle occurred between him and Lewis Hamilton. It took Lando a few laps to get his strategy right as he was overtaking way before the detection line, meaning he wasn’t getting any DRS down the straight and instead it was Lewis who was getting it, having the advantage. After two tries, he finally managed to overtake him on lap 14. He finished P4 today, a job well done however, many fans were expecting a last-lap Lando from him as he steadily approached Leclerc on the ending laps for an overtake which never happened. Lando had a near penalty today as he was noted for crossing the line at the pit exit. His tyre was too far on the right, touching the white exit line. However, after further investigation, no penalty was handed. Did Lando have some struggles during his pit entry too? I missed that however I heard the commentators mentioning it. Anyone know what went on there?
Finally, a Ferrari driver on the podium! I’ve been waiting for this day since the start of the season! Charles Leclerc finished P3 as he was Lightning McQueen today, getting 3 fastest laps in a row. His fastest lap time was 1:32:192. On the topic of quick timings, Ferrari managed to do a speedy pit stop! On lap 30, Ferrari pitted Leclerc for only 2 seconds! Impressive! As of right now, this is the quickest pit stop of the season, beating their previous record of 2.05 in China. All went well for Charles today, but what about Lewis? Well, it seems like he’s still trying to adapt to the new car. Hamilton made some comments about struggles in the rears, let’s hope that by Miami all will be sorted and who knows, maybe we'll get two Ferrari drivers on the podium? Fingers crossed!
At last, William landed some more points with Carlos Sainz finishing P8 and Alex Albon P9. Well deserved! After an unlucky previous race for Carlos, he had a turn around and got some points to take home. Talking about the previous race, it seemed like the problems came back to trouble Liam Lawson as he had received a 10 second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage on Jack Doohan. It’s as if he didn’t receive enough penalties in Bahrain. George Russell had commented on having front left tyre problems, however the team had no concerns about that. Clearly they don’t want to discuss car issues especially after the last race.
On lap 26, Gabriel Bortoleto had nearly made contact with Fernando Alsono which was swiftly avoided. Funnily enough, Alonso is Gabriel's manager. That must be a fun next meeting for Gabriel. Bortoleto received a black and white flag for moving under braking. Oscar Piastri made a joking comment later on saying “He might not have a flight home tonight anymore.” Well, let’s hope that's not the truth. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if he makes it to Miami!
That’s it from me today! It was a rapid race today so I don’t have much to speak on. However, if you’d love to read more, head over to my Bahrain post! I spoke lots about that race, seriously, it's a long one. Let me know if you have any suggestions or improvements for me. What else would you like to see me write about? See you next time for the Miami Grand Prix!