Max Verstappen is driving in a league of his own again at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – and is celebrating his ninth Formula 1 victory in a row. A perfect race? “This time we only won by 19 seconds,” jokes Helmut Marko.
As a reminder: a week ago Verstappen crossed the finish line in Bahrain with a lead of 22.5 seconds.
“It may not have been that pleasant for the spectators, but we were superior, you just have to admit that,” the Red Bull Motorsport boss is honest. “I think the car was good in all areas, the tire wear was also very good.”
“Overall it was of course a fantastic weekend for the whole team,” said race winner Verstappen. “But also for myself, I felt very good in the car. And that was no different in the race either.” The Dutchman’s race victory was never in danger.
After a perfect start, Verstappen pulled away from his pursuers in the first few laps. It was only the safety car on the sixth lap of the race, triggered by Lance Stroll’s accident, that caused changes at the top. Lando Norris, who did not make a stop, slipped past the Red Bull driver and took the lead.
Formula 1: Red Bull struggles with the hard tires
In the first few laps after the stop, Verstappen struggled to get his hard tires up to temperature and even fell out of the McLaren driver’s DRS window at times. “It took a few laps and I didn’t take any big risks,” reports the 26-year-old.
However, on lap 13 Verstappen struck, passed Norris and continued his winning ways. At the halfway point of the race, the Dutchman was already leading by 6.8 seconds over his teammate Perez. However, the early safety car phase, which made a long final stint with hard tires necessary, was very inconvenient for Verstappen.
“I think that ideally you wouldn’t want to do such a long stint on this tire, but we had to and that makes it even more difficult here with all the high-speed corners when the tire falls out the window a little bit.”
The difficulties with the tires were the biggest problem that Red Bull had to contend with in the race. “The warm-up phase wasn’t that good,” confirms Marko on “Sky”. “And with the hard one [Reifen] The tire wear towards the end was also higher than we expected.”
Ralf Schumacher: Red Bull “in a world of its own”
“The last few laps with the cold tires and the backbenchers were a bit slippery,” says Verstappen. “But we had a good pace all around and were able to handle the distance well. So overall we are very, very satisfied.”
“We saw that Mercedes’ strategy was actually very good,” says Marko on ORF. Lewis Hamilton was on the medium tires for a long time and switched to the soft tires in the second stint. “So it wasn’t that easy,” admits Marko. “It’s almost a qualifying championship. You have to be at the front in qualifying and then life is much easier and then it looks easier.”
That’s why Marko believes that the season won’t be a sure-fire success for Red Bull, especially “at circuits where qualifying is crucial, for example Monte-Carlo and Singapore.” In Saudi Arabia “it was another extraordinary lap from Max with which he secured pole,” says the Red Bull sports advisor.
“And if that doesn’t work and we don’t start from pole, then it could certainly happen that we don’t win,” believes Marko. Ralf Schumacher sees it differently: “You were in your own world today and it will probably continue like that.”
“What I find fascinating is that both drivers and the staff at work do a great job despite the tumult that prevails,” says the Sky expert. “Max has crazy nerves. It also gets to him personally, but he doesn’t make a mistake, nothing, perfect.”
100th podium in the 188th race? “Then we missed 88 podiums!”
Nevertheless, Red Bull still has some homework to do. “Tyre wear, the balance of the vehicle, … these are all things we can still work on,” says Verstappen.
And another drawback of the (almost) perfect Jeddah week: the Dutchman was no longer able to secure the fastest lap in the end. Charles Leclerc grabbed this bonus point.
“Hamilton put soft tires on them at the end and, quite reasonably, Max didn’t even ask about them,” reveals Marko, who shortly after the race didn’t even know that the fastest lap was ultimately set by the Ferrari driver: “Oh! I even did that didn’t notice.”
The Jeddah success is the 56th race victory for Verstappen and also the 100th podium finish in his 188th Formula 1 race. What does the Dutch think about it? “That we missed 88 podiums,” he jokes. “No, honestly, I’m very happy. I’m not a fan of statistics and prefer to focus from race to race.”