@Max33Verstappen snatches victory from @CharlesLeclerc in thrilling #SaudiArabianGP. #F1

Verstappen Saudi Arabian GP victory – Red Bull’s Max Verstappen snatched victory at the Saudi Arabian GP in a thrilling closing battle with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who came second, and Carlos Sainz completed the podium for the Scuderia.

 

 

The reigning champion grabbed the win by 0.549 seconds after a DRS-assisted slip-streaming affair with Leclerc in the second half of proceedings at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, after the Monegasque driver tried again to tactically out-manoeuvre the Red Bull driver.

 

But Verstappen held onto clinch the victory as Ferrari scored a double podium, whilst pole-sitter Sergio Perez ended up fourth in the other Red Bull.

 

When the 50-lap Saudi Arabian GP began, pole-sitter Perez got a clean getaway off the line into turn one, covering Leclerc but was largely unchallenged as Verstappen fought with Sainz.

 

As Sainz had to remain cautious to miss the rear of his Ferrari team-mate at the first left-hand corner, Verstappen was able to find his way around the outside as the track twisted back into turn two.

 

Verstappen out-paced the Ferrari to take third, whilst Perez moved to a 1.3 second gap over Leclerc in the opening two tours with Verstappen the same amount back again.

 

The attention turned straight to battle of the Alpine drivers, arriving after Mercedes’ George Russell made an early overtake on Esteban Ocon to take sixth place.

 

Ocon moved to the inside down the pit-straight and appeared to squeeze a DRS-assisted team-mate of Fernando Alonso against the wall, forcing the Spaniard to retreat out of the fifth-lap move.

 

The following tour, Alonso attempted again, but was further back and had to abandon a possible move around the outside of the first corner before the battle continued next time round.

 

Alonso was able to eventually get by his team-mate but only momentarily, as Ocon took sixth place back with DRS into the opening corner but ran across the run-off and missed the apex and had to give the position back to the double world champion.

 

The Alpine pairing were then told to hold station, with Alonso in-front of Ocon.

 

Perez was able to gain a lead of over two seconds ahead of Leclerc, with Verstappen 1.5 seconds behind the Monegasque driver whilst Sainz was a further 3.1 seconds back.

 

Then the gap dropped to 1.5 seconds to make Perez dive into the pits on the 15^th lap for a set of the C2 white side-walled hard compounds, but a slow stop and cold tyres brought the Mexican out behind Russell in fifth.

 

The potential race win then slipped away from Perez as double-waved yellow flags became a virtual safety car then the full safety car due to the retirement of Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi.

 

After crashing in Q1, the Canadian shunted again on the 16^th lap when he hit the throttle too early exiting the last corner and over-corrected his FW44 racer towards the wall.

 

Although Latifi locked all four wheels as he jumped on the brakes, he still whacked the barrier.

 

The interruption allowed the leaders to stop in stabilised conditions to jump Perez, with Leclerc taking the lead from Verstappen, who narrowly avoided Sainz in the pits.

 

Sainz then had a close run-in with Perez, stuck behind Russell on his out-lap, got past at the safety car line as Sainz got squeezed towards the second corner wall.

 

When the race returned to green, Verstappen attempted to put Leclerc off at the last turn, but the Ferrari driver could break the slipstream and lead with no threat, building up a gap of two seconds.

 

Perez was ordered to give back the position only after the restart to slip to fourth place in-front of Russell, whilst a 15^th-starting Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton stayed on his harder rubber to climb to sixth place.

 

But only after a appealing battle with Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen, which was resolved when the Briton dived for the position into the opening corner, the Haas having re-passed in similar circumstances on the previous tour thanks to a double-DRS effect on the main-straight.

 

Meanwhile Verstappen, began to respond to Leclerc’s quick first sector times with a series of fastest laps to reel the Ferrari in and decrease the gap to under 1.5 seconds.

 

A second virtual safety car was deployed on the 38^th lap when Alonso, Alfa Romeo F1 Team ORLEN’s Valtteri Bottas and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo effectively retired together.

 

The Alpine was the first to retire as Alonso suffered a power failure and fell out of seventh place, though the Spaniard made it back to pit-lane to stop the car.

 

Ricciardo’s Mercedes-powered MCL36 stopped at the beginning of the main-straight after the Australian suffered a lock-up into the last corner and never got going again.

 

Whilst Bottas was able to make it back to the pits and be brought back into the Alfa Romeo garage, the location of where Ricciardo and Alonso’s cars meant the pit-lane was closed to hurt Hamilton.

 

Still on his starting set of the harder compound, the Briton received the call to stop too late and had to stay put until the race went back to green on the 41^st tour, and Hamilton immediately pitted for a set of the C3 yellow-marked medium tyres.

 

Verstappen was now only 0.6 seconds behind race-leader Leclerc as he chased his first victory of the 2022 campaign after his RB18 racer retired with a fuel vacuum issue at the season-opening Bahrain GP.

 

With a slipstream down the main-straight, Leclerc was forced to cover the inside and defend on lap 42, but Verstappen decided against an attempted late dive.

 

The Dutchman instead saved the fight for the lead until the final corner, at this point Leclerc repeated his Bahrain strategy by holding his pace over the DRS detection point.

 

So, whilst Verstappen held track position, Leclerc had DRS assistance and defended his regained lead into the first turn.

 

Verstappen was set for a similar lunge next time round, but as he used DRS, the Red Bull driver locked-up over the detection line and dropped back to give Leclerc the position and a comfortable gap.

 

The fight however, appeared to take it’s toll on the rear tyres of Leclerc’s F1-75 racer, the Ferrari over-steered out of the final corner to allow Verstappen to successfully get the run for P1.

 

Leclerc was forced to abandon the second corner as a result, bracing himself for a final-tour showdown.

 

Whilst Leclerc could close within 0.549 seconds, Verstappen held on to claim a brilliant Saudi Arabian GP victory.

 

Sainz finished a further seven seconds behind team-mate Leclerc in third, as Perez settled for fourth after a dull battle with Russell. Both Sainz and Perez are currently under investigation by the stewards for speeding under double-waved yellows.

 

Ocon meanwhile came sixth for Alpine and in-front of McLaren’s Lando Norris and AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly who were seventh and eighth respectively.

 

Magnussen, who entered the Saudi Arabian GP with neck pain after twinging it in qualifying, holding onto ninth as Mercedes’ Hamilton rounded out the top ten.

 

Despite being hit with a drive-through penalty for not serving his five-second timed penalty plus suffering clutch and anti-stall issues with his C42 racer, Zhou Guanyu, the Chinese driver was 11^th for Alfa Romeo as the Aston Martin duo Nico Hulkenberg and Lance Stroll completed the finishers of the race.

 

Stroll was able to make it over the line after a late tangle with Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon after coming together at turn one, which ended the latter’s race and brought out the yellow flags at the opening corner during the closing stages of the Verstappen-Leclerc fight.

 

AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda, who was unable to post a qualifying lap following a water-system problem, the pulled up at the first sector onboard his AT03 racer on his way to the starting grid with an engine issue.

 

This combined with Haas F1 Team not opting to start Mick Schumacher’s VF-22 racer to avoid repairs after the German’s heavy Q2 crash, created the scenario, which saw 18 cars start the race.

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2022 Saudi Arabian GP – The Top Three

 

 

2022 Saudi Arabian GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #33, Oracle Red Bull Racing – RBPT, RB18:

“A good race, we were battling hard. We just had to play the long game; the tyres were wearing out quite quick. It wasn’t easy, eventually managed to get ahead – just really happy to kickstart the season.”

 

2^nd Place – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

“It wasn’t enough today but oh my god, I really enjoyed that race! It was hard racing but fair, every race should be like this. We are in a street track, we’ve been pushing like I’ve rarely pushed before, so there is respect, but I’m also a little disappointed.”

 

3^rd Place – Carlos Sainz, #55, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

“I think [Perez] got unlucky with the Safety Car but rules are rules. After that it was all about holding on to P3. For me this race was progress from Bahrain, I found more rhythm with the car, still some tenths to find but I’ll get there.”

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Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2022 Race Results Classification (50 Laps)

 

POS	NO	DRIVER	CAR	LAPS	TIME/RETIRED	PTS
1	1	Max Verstappen	RED BULL RACING RBPT	50	1:24:19.293	25
2	16	Charles Leclerc	FERRARI	50	+0.549s	19
3	55	Carlos Sainz	FERRARI	50	+8.097s	15
4	11	Sergio Perez	RED BULL RACING RBPT	50	+10.800s	12
5	63	George Russell	MERCEDES	50	+32.732s	10
6	31	Esteban Ocon	ALPINE RENAULT	50	+56.017s	8
7	4	Lando Norris	MCLAREN MERCEDES	50	+56.124s	6
8	10	Pierre Gasly	ALPHATAURI RBPT	50	+62.946s	4
9	20	Kevin Magnussen	HAAS FERRARI	50	+64.308s	2
10	44	Lewis Hamilton	MERCEDES	50	+73.948s	1
11	24	Zhou Guanyu	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	50	+82.215s	0
12	27	Nico Hulkenberg	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	50	+91.742s	0
13	18	Lance Stroll	ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES	49	+1 lap	0
14	23	Alexander Albon	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	47	DNF	0
NC	77	Valtteri Bottas	ALFA ROMEO FERRARI	36	DNF	0
NC	14	Fernando Alonso	ALPINE RENAULT	35	DNF	0
NC	3	Daniel Ricciardo	MCLAREN MERCEDES	35	DNF	0
NC	6	Nicholas Latifi	WILLIAMS MERCEDES	14	DNS	0
NC	22	Yuki Tsunoda	ALPHATAURI RBPT	0	DNF	0

* Provisional results. Note – Leclerc scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1125/saudi-arabia/race-result.html

 

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

 

Round three of the 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship returns to the famous Albert Park Street Circuit in Melbourne, Victoria for the first time in three years for the Formula 1 Heineken Australian Grand Prix 2022 from Friday April 8-Sunday April 10.

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