Pole: Sergio Perez
Winner: Sergio Perez
Fastest Lap: Max Verstappen 1.31.906
1-10
Fernando Alonso gets a dream start and takes Perez into turn 1. Lance Stroll makes a great move on Sainz to get into p4 as Russell makes a solid start and stays in p3. Lap 3 Piastri has been into the pits for a broken front wing, followed by Norris who also needs a front wing change. In lap 4 Perez locks up into turn 1 and overtakes Alonso for the lead, Alonso has a 5-second penalty for an incorrect starting position as we see him slightly to the left of his pit box on the restart. Lap 5 Leclerc has made up 3 places in an amazing start and is now up to p9. Verstappen is up to p11 who should be near the front very soon with the pace of the Red Bull. Lap 6, Sainz is keeping in touch with Stroll who is in p4 with Drs now available for all drivers. Despite contact with Piastri at the start, Gasly is in p8 and into a DRS train consisting of Hamilton, Gasly and Leclerc. Lap 7 Leclerc gets past his good friend Gasly in the alpine as he takes the outside line of turn 1. In lap 8, Hamilton has been noted for weaving on the straight while trying to break the tow earlier in the race, Perez is still out in front but Alonso is still following within 1 second. As Hamilton is shown the black and white flag on lap 9 Leclerc gets passed the Mercedes on soft tyres.
10-20
Verstappen overtakes Gasly to take p9 as Hamilton is his next target and is only 1 second behind. In lap 11, the Williams have made up good positions as Albon is in p14 and Sargeant in p16 up 4 places from the start whilst the McLaren of Norris is in p20 and Piastri in p18 separated by Bottas in the Alfa Romeo. Lap 12 Zhou and Hulkenberg are in the pits as Verstappen gets passed the Mercedes on the main straight. As the pit window opens for the soft runners Leclerc overtakes Ocon in the Alpine to take p6, catching his teammate. Lap 14 Stroll has come into the pits for the hard tyres as Ferrari does the opposite of stroll. Lap 16 Sainz comes into the pits for new Hard tyres and comes out ahead of Stroll into p9. Lap 17 Leclerc and Ocon both pit as Stroll is now behind both Ferraris after running ahead. Lap 17 Stroll has stopped on the track due to overheating tyres as the safety car is released as a flurry of cars enters the pits. Perez, Russell, Alonso and Verstappen all come in as this safety car plays into Verstappen’s hands wonderfully.
20-30
Lap 20 and everyone is away safely from the restart as Hamilton on the fresh medium tyres into turn 2 makes a beautiful move on the inside to take p5. Lap 23, Verstappen is closing in on Russell as DRS is enabled which has made passing Russell easy for Verstappen. Two laps later and Verstappen has taken Alonso to make it a Red Bull 1-2. Lap 26 Tsunoda is running well in p10 followed by the two HAAS cars as behind them we have Albon who has reported a break failure and goes off the track and now tries to stay out of the way of others and drops down to last place and it seems as he is going to retire. That moves Zhou up to p14 the De Vries then the two McLaren then Bottas. In lap 28 Hamilton is now close to Russell as Mercedes give team orders for Russell to move out of the way for Hamilton on the fresher tyres as Russell is picking up the pace and pulling away from Hamilton.
30-40
In lap 32 Perez is holding his own out in the lead as Verstappen is 5 seconds behind followed by Alonso is 8 seconds behind followed by the two Mercedes cars. Lap 36 Hulkenberg who is running p12 has brushed the wall into turn 1 as we see Bottas come into the pits for the soft tyres and is running last in the race. Lap 38 Verstappen is reporting vibrations during high speeds as both Perez and Verstappen both run off the track at the same corner. Zhou in the Alfa Romeo makes a brilliant move on turn 1 to take p13 as Sargeant and De Vries are now all within 1 second of each other.
40-50
Both Red Bulls have been reporting issues with their cars as we see further down the field Tsunoda holding off Magnussen in the HAAS who is closing the gap lap by lap for that final championship point. In lap 43 Norris is closing the gap to the Williams and is closely followed by Piastri who is closing the gap to Norris. Race leader Perez is keeping the lead as both Red Bulls are told that they are free to push. In lap 46 Magnussen and Tsunoda both lock up into turn 1 and Magnussen takes p10 but they are still both following closely as Verstappen is told not to worry about the fastest lap. In lap 48 Norris is overtaken by his teammate Piastri as the running order stays the same at the front. The final lap of the race and Russell is pushing like a “mad man” as Perez continues to lead the race and Verstappen is going for the fastest lap. Alonso takes p3 and becomes a centurion with his podiums records as today marks his 100th podium in Formula 1 and joins other greats of the sport like Hamilton and Vettel.
After an investigation, Alonso has been given a 10-second penalty as he did not serve his 5-second penalty in the pits correctly, giving George Russell his first podium of the season.
Summary:
Another fantastic day for the Red Bull team who picked up another 1-2 at the second race of the season in Saudi Arabia. The 'King of the Streets' Sergio Perez adds another win to his tally of street circuit wins with his teammate Max Verstappen in second place with the fastest lap. After some time and confusion, Alonso achieved the 100th podium of his career. Alonso suffered the same time penalty Ocon did last race for lining outside of his grid box, whilst serving this penalty the rear jack man seemed to have touched the car before the 5 seconds was served which added an additional 10 seconds to his time but on second review the penalty was reversed meaning that Alonso kept his 3rd place and Russell moved back down to 4th.
Leclerc had a good recovery race from the back of the grid to finish p7, Sainz in p6 and the two Mercedes in front of them. It was another dismal day for McLaren who had troubles with both cars during the race, Piastri made contact with Gasly on lap 1 with some of his front-end wing plate coming off and then hitting Norris' car behind which caused him to have some technical problems both drivers finished outside of the points in p15 and p17. In the full classification list, Bottas finished last after suffering some technical problems with his car whilst there were 2 retirees. Alex Albon in the Williams suffered from terminal brake problems and Lance Stroll in the Aston Martin was told to stop in the early part of the race on lap 17.
Next Race: Australia.
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