The Grand Prize of Saudi Arabia had its biggest excitement on Sunday when Oscar Piatri and Max Verstappen dueled hard in the first curve. The following five-second penalty against the world champion was probably decisive, accordingly the waves hit high afterwards.
In the sport.de-EBEBREF you will find out why Red Bull deliberately did not order his superstar why Lando Norris lost a lot of time and what made Williams so strong at the end of the race.
Formula 1 has the same winner after the race in Saudi Arabia as in the last race in Bahrain, but a new World Cup leader. Oscar Piatri won in an exciting duel, which was also influenced by decisions by the stewards, against a re -strengthened Max Verstappen in the Red Bull. The start was already decisive.
After extremely tight qualifying, Verstappen had secured the pole position in front of Piatri by a hundredth of a second. However, when the lights of the starting stamps went out, the Australian got away a little better and was almost on the same with the reigning world champion.
In the first curve, Piatri insisted on his line, according to the stewards. In order to avoid a collision, Verstappen had to leave the route, shortened curve 2 (curve 1 and 2 form a harassment) and thus gained an advantage over his competitor. Since Ver did not give it back and dropped behind Piatri, he received the expected receipt in the form of a five-second penalty from the stewards at the first pit stop.
Legging in seconds of competitors on Oscar Piatri
Red Bull accepted the Verstappen penalty
At Red Bull, the risk of this punishment was obviously accepted, if you had free travel, you could dictate the race from front and possibly drive out the necessary lead. However, the plan did not work, Verstappen was only able to break away for a good two seconds at the end of the first stint.
This was not enough for the four -time champions to remain before the strategy after the punishment has been served Piatri. In this phase of Lewis Hamilton, Zünglein on the scale could have played in Ferrari who had not yet stopped. Both Piatri and Verstappen fell behind the record world champion after their stops, but were soon able to overtake them without loss of time. So after the pit stops Piatri was about four seconds before his adversary in the Red Bull. He managed this lead down to the finish line, appearing that it was even more performance in the McLaren.
The situation was different with Lando Norris, the second McLaren pilot. He had once again sensed the qualifying (accident in Q3) and had to go into the race from starting place 10.
Despite the turned strategy – one -stop from hard on medium, with a long first stint, while the other top cars drove medium/hard – he quickly overtaken the slower cars. With Lewis Hamilton in the much slower Ferrari, the Briton was much more difficult. With a peasant trick (counterattack in the second DRS zone), Hamilton managed to keep Norris behind twice in a row. This cost tire wear and ultimately rounds that were missing to the end of the race to overtake Charles Leclerc despite the tire advantage. Once again, the supposed World Cup candidate missed the necessary overview and cleverness.
Third place for Charles Leclerc the maximum
The difference from Norris to teammate Piatri and defending champion Verstappen is currently obvious when you see how hard the two main competitors around the World Cup leadership in the race are.
In his part, after the early Safety car phase (after accident tsunoda with Gasly), his class shows when he brought the field on the edge of the permission so that he could keep the lead without any problems. However, the plan to get Piatri out of the concept so that Mercedes-Mann George Russell comes by, but failed.
At Charlec Leclerc, Ferrari took out the maximum with P3 and was happy to have ended with a long first stint thanks to a strategy to have held the norris open from behind.
Team colleague Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, had been struggling with his performance all weekend. This was not better in the race either. The result was an unsatisfactory place. The acclimatization in the new Ferrari car and team is tougher than hoped, which is certainly not beneficial for motivation.
The two Mercedes finished in the places in front of it. Russell had actually hoped for a top placement with a favorable course of the race. This claim did not meet any phase in the race. A tire dramatically breaking in the last 15 rounds then also destroyed the hope of at least keeping Norris behind. Team colleague Kimi Antonelli drove a little exciting race and lined up behind it.
A small treat was the fight for the last points. Williams was at the end of the racing in places 8 (Carlos Sainz) and 9 (Alex Albon).
Isack Hadjar in the Racing Bull had a different strategy (one-stop hard/medium, the Williams Medium/Hart) and fell on P10 after his stop.
Thanks to the fresh medium tire, Hadjar began to attack Albon. At Williams, however, they reacted and asked Sainz to let something fall behind to give the DRS advantage under pressure. The plan went up, it took the Thai to keep Hadjar behind.
At Racing Bull you will have to ask yourself the question that you would not have had a chance with a slightly earlier pit stop to get back on the route in front of one or both of Williams.
To person:
Christian Danner made the leap into Formula 1 in 1985 with winning the Formula 3000 European Championship. Until 1986 he ran four World Cup points in the premier class for several small teams and won four World Cup. Then he drove in the US Indycar series and became the first German racing driver to score points in Formula 1 and Indycar. In the DTM, Danner won five races between 1988 and 1996, in 1997 he retired from motorsport. From 1998 to 2022, Bayer commented on Formula 1 at RTL alongside Heiko Wäßer. Danner works as a TV expert and driving safety trainer. Follows Christian Danner on Instagram.
Steffen Kosuch, a former Moto-cross driver, has been part of the Formula 1 team at RTL since the early 2000s. As a former racing engineer and advisor to the FIA, he takes care of racing strategy, performance analyzes, regulations and advertising planning at RTL.