Red Bull Racing promised the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix would generate a closer contest, and technically it was right.
Max Verstappen’s victory margin over the next-next team was 18 seconds, down from 25 seconds in Bahrain last weekend.
Sometimes it’s the hope that kills you.
Every practice, qualifying session and race from the 2024 FIA Formula One World Championship™ LIVE. New to Kayo? Start Your Free Trial Today >
‘INCREDIBLE’: F1 rookie’s debut throws spanner in works for 2025 driver market
Victory for Verstappen and second place for Sergio Pérez looked effortless. Despite the smooth track supposedly negating the RB20’s advantage on tyre consumption, both drivers were able to sprint off into the Jeddah night without trouble.
Pérez was even able to completely offset his five-second penalty for an unsafe release from pit lane — in fact there was never any doubt that he would.
While scandal and intrigue continue to inundate the team off the track, on the circuit there’s no slowing down Red Bull Racing.
BEARMAN BRIGHT SPOT FOR FERRARI
Ferrari was again Red Bull Racing’s closest challenger — ‘challenger’ used loosely in this context — with Charles Leclerc completing the podium 18.639 seconds off the lead and just shy of 10 seconds behind Pérez before penalties.
“We maximised everything today,” he said afterwards. “I think we’ll probably have to wait and see whenever we have new parts to the car what kind of step we do forward. Hopefully that will bring us closer to Red Bull.”
It was moderately optimistic night at best for the Scuderia, but there was one genuinely bright spot for the team.
Oliver Bearman’s sudden Formula 1 debut was a tremendous success.
The Briton wasn’t the finished article, but nor was he out of place. At one of the sport’s most difficult circuits he pushed his limits in a controlled, thoughtful way to get the most from his opportunity.
That meant 11th in qualifying and an excellent seventh in the race — well beyond expectations.
It was a big tick for Ferrari for a few reasons.
First, it’s vindication for the decision to break from tradition and give a green teenager a shot. Past Ferrari bosses would’ve looked for a more certain but less exciting pair of hands in circumstances like these.
Second, it sets up Ferrari for the future.
Without wanting to speculate on how long Lewis Hamilton might race in red, he’s clearly closer to the end of his career than the beginning.
A few years at Haas as an apprenticeship for Bearman would probably line him up nicely with the end of Hamilton’s tenure — or perhaps with Leclerc losing patience with Maranello if the team takes a step backwards in 2026.
Whatever the case, it can be only good news for the 18-year-old, who seems almost certain to figure in the 2025 driver market.
‘Another frustrating night for Ricciardo | 00:27
HAAS SCORES A POINT — BUT THE FIELD SPREAD IS HUGE
Haas achieved what looks like an increasingly difficult mission for a handful of teams in the bottom half of the grid: it scored.
It was just for 10th place, and it was just one point, but that’s enough to catapult the American-owned team to sixth in the constructors standings ahead of Williams, Sauber, RB and Alpine.
To score it required two things: a perfectly executed strategy and Lance Stroll crashing out of the race.
It’s clear after two rounds that the teams chasing Red Bull Racing — Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin — are closer together this season. But it’s also clear that they’ve all taken a bigger step over the off-season than the bottom teams.
It’s created a significant gap between the two groups, and that’s put points out of reach of five teams in ordinary circumstances.
It’s why one point has made such a big difference to Haas’s position.
To bridge the gap to the points, the American team played clever tactics with its two drivers.
Kevin Magnussen pitted with most of the field behind the Stroll-initiated safety car, while Nico Hülkenberg rolled the dice and stayed out.
Magnussen probably could have picked up the final point of the race from there, but two clumsy 10-seconds penalties — for causing a collision and overtaking off the track — put paid to his points quest.
Instead the team instructed him to defend as aggressively as he could to open a gap for Hülkenberg to pit into later in the race.
He executed magnificently. The regulations define a car’s maximum width, but the Dane’s VF-24 looked twice as wide as he fended off challenges from Alex Albon, Esteban Ocon, Yuki Tsunoda and Logan Sargeant.
Hülkenberg made his stop with plenty of space to spare to grind out his hard-earned 10th place.
It’s just reward for Haas, which looks revitalised under new team boss Ayao Komatsu contrary to pre-season expectations.
An engineer by trade, Komatsu has taken the team back to basics. His stern, unwavering focus on solving the tyre wear problem has given the team something to fight with during races, and though it’s been only two weekends, execution has been slick.
With points so hard to come by, discipline and execution could be the difference in the million-dollar fight for position on the title table.
McLAREN PODIUM NEAR MISS GIVES TEAM DEVELOPMENT AIM
McLaren was briefly in the frame for a podium with Oscar Piastri, who has fast developed a reputation as a Saudi specialist.
Twice a Jeddah winner in Formula 2 and a superb eighth on last year’s grid in what was then a dog of a McLaren, the Aussie again outqualified teammate Lando Norris to lead a third row five-six lockout in this year’s starting formation.
His race got off to a ferocious start with a gutsy move around the outside of Fernando Alonso at the first chicane to move up to fourth, which put him directly behind Leclerc at the safety car restart.
Piastri was keeping up well with the Ferrari driver early in the second stint, but he couldn’t follow him past Lewis Hamilton.
For 21 laps he toiled behind the Mercedes — “Now a Mercedes rear wing expert,” he quipped after the race — without finding a way through despite a couple of near misses.
The data shows why.
With DRS open Piastri was usually still lacking one or two kilometres per hour before hitting the brakes into the first turn.
Just getting to within one or two kilometres of Hamilton’s top speed invariably required Piastri to charge his battery at the end of the track’s other long straights, where he’d ship 20 kilometres per hour or more to give himself the best chance down the main straight.
It was a podium-getting performance but in a car not yet quite up to podium potential — though it’s clearly close.
In this case it was a side-effect of McLaren’s decision to run with more downforce on this high-speed circuit to better manage tyres and balance. It’s hard to argue with the logic when Piastri finished fourth and Norris would’ve finished fifth had it not been for the safety car — notwithstanding Norris was lucky to avoid a penalty for what many would argue was a clear jump start.
But it shows a crucial area of improvement needed for the MCL36 to step up in competitiveness this season.
Horner & Max’s dad share heated chat | 00:19
RB WAY OFF THE PACE
For the second week in a row RB teammates Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo ended a race well outside the points and a lap down.
For Ricciardo it was an especially painful night, staring 14th and finishing 16th.
His race was as good as done after 10 laps, when a super slow tyre change — in the realm of 40 seconds — dropped him more than half a minute off the back of the pack.
Though he recovered a pair of positions late, a spin in the closing laps cost him a chance to pass Logan Sargeant for 15th.
This was far from a sterling weekend from the Aussie, but with Tsunoda faring scarcely better, Ricciardo said it was clear there were broader issues at play.
“I think the only thing that’s probably keeping me a little bit optimistic now is we did find a few things, so that’s positive,” he said.
“I’ve driven a long time; I know when things don’t feel quite right. On one hand it’s nice to find a few things, but on another it meant that it was a pretty painful weekend. That’s obviously frustrating.”
Tsunoda, who finished just one place ahead of Ricciardo after a post-race penalty for an unsafe release, said the problems of Saudi Arabia were the same that had long afflicted Faenza’s line of cars.
“I struggled with grip,” he lamented. “It was pretty difficult to handle it.
“On the positive side we had pace — good qualifying — but we have to still work on this kind of race.
“Historically we tend to always struggle with the race pace. We have to figure out why.”
Looking forward to his home race, Ricciardo said he was hopeful of improvements as soon as the next race in Melbourne in a fortnight.
“Melbourne will be better,” he said. “I know we’ll fix it and have an equal playing field and a strong showing.
“It feels like it’s been a pretty slow start to the year, but it’s been two races. I know how quickly this thing can turn around.
“There’s not too much head scratching right now. It’s just a frustrating weekend, but it’s not that we don’t have answers. I think it’s quite clear.
“We’ve just got to polish her up and make sure it’s good to go for Melbourne.”