GAME ON: Verstappen strikes back for Round 2 victory in Saudi Arabia with late pass on P2 Leclerc; Sainz P3 & unlucky Perez P4, as 2022 appears to be two-team battle between Ferrari & Red Bull

After failing to finish in Round 1 of the 2022 Formula 1 season last week in Bahrain and starting from a disappointing P4 for this Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen received not only improved reliability but also the key breaks during the race to out-duel Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and take his first win of the season. Leclerc and Ferrari had been brilliant all day, using a devious head fake that lured the pole-sitting Red Bull of Sergio Perez into an early stop on Lap 16 while Leclerc stayed out despite team radio suggesting otherwise. It proved to be the first pivotal moment of an eventful race because Williams’ Nicholas Latifi crashed out on the very next lap and forced the deployment of a Safety Car. That allowed the rest of the field to come to the pits for cheap stops for fresh rubber while Perez had just completed his for the full fare. When everyone had cycled through behind the Safety Car, Leclerc now led the race, with Verstappen leapfrogging both Sainz and his teammate Perez for second, while Sainz and Perez squabbled over P3 and P4 respectively. At that point, it looked for all the world that Leclerc had the best car and he seemed to lead out Verstappen fairly easily once the race went back to green on Lap 21.

How good was Max vs. Charles?! #SaudiArabianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/e0Tdl9Kpm5

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 27, 2022

But the tricky and tight Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit was not done doling out surprises on the day and after twenty-six fairly straightforward laps with the main contenders staying in lockstep the proceedings were again interrupted. First, the Alpine of a hard charging Fernando Alonso lost power and slowed to a stop just in front of pit entry on Lap 37 and then the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo followed suit in practically the exact same area a lap later. This forced the race director not only to engage the Virtual Safety Car in order to retrieve the stranded pair of cars but also to keep the pits closed this time due to their proximate location. Interestingly, by the time the VSC ended on Lap 41 Verstappen had crept a little closer to Leclerc than he was able to at race pace and now only trailed the lead Prancing Horse by just under a second, the delta necessary to activate the Drag Reduction System in the rear wing. It also set things up for a grandstand finish between the two drivers, who so far have to be seen as the favorites for this year’s championship.

The resulting late race ding-dong battle didn’t disappoint, as Verstappen first grabbed the lead from Leclerc by using the DRS into the final corner on Lap 42 but Leclerc promptly snatched it back going down the start-finish straight with his own use of DRS. Lap 43 saw a similarly close fight into that final corner, with Leclerc just holding off the Dutchman when the latter locked up. But on Lap 47 of this 50-lap contest, the combination of the Red Bull’s straight-line pace advantage and the power of the DRS boost was simply too much for the Ferrari to keep at bay anymore and Verstappen was finally able to put Leclerc in his rearview mirrors, even if only barely. While Leclerc would subsequently grab the bonus point for the race’s fastest lap, it was Verstappen who earned his first victory of the season coming home just a half-second in front of the P2 Ferrari. It is still obviously early days but, based on the evidence from the first two contests, the major changes to the formula for this season appear to be paying dividends, with cars being able to race each other more closely and for much longer periods of time without having to back off for several laps to cool engine components, brakes, tires, etc. The only issue that might be starting to show is that perhaps the DRS is now too strong and too decisive, especially if a car like Red Bull is already that much faster in a straight line than the rest of the field. Either way, the Saudi GP was about as exciting a race as one could want and a season-long mano a mano battle between Leclerc and Verstappen and Ferrari and Red Bull looks to be in the cards, a mouth watering prospect for F1 fans.

The second Ferrari of Sainz essentially held station after the initial Safety Car, lacking the pure pace of the elite duo at the front but with more than enough to keep the second Red Bull at bay, and finished a comfortable P3. The unlucky Perez, who started the day on pole for the first time in his long career, had to settle for P4 after the Red Bull team was snookered by Ferrari into that untimely early pit stop from the lead. Further down the order, Mercedes’ young George Russell drove a very solid race to come home P5, making some decisive passes early on and then finding a big gap behind Perez to ride around in thereafter. Russell’s Silver Arrows teammate, Lewis Hamilton, the seven time world champion, saw his one-stop strategy unravel a bit when the pits stayed closed during that late race VSC and he was unable to make a cheap stop off of his well used first set of Hard Pirellis. But Hamilton still managed to recover from an awful P15 starting spot on the grid to take P10. Certainly not optimal for a driver of his caliber but a point, at least, and the team will now have two weeks before the next race in Melbourne to get a handle on whatever was plaguing Hamilton’s car this weekend.

The lone surviving Alpine of Esteban Ocon finished P6 and had to fend off a hungry Lando Norris at the finish line, with Norris taking an encouraging P7 for struggling McLaren and perhaps taking some of the sting out of Ricciardo’s DNF. AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly finished in P8 after his teammate Yuki Tsunoda didn’t start the race due to an engine issue. And Haas’ Kevin Magnussen took P9 after his teammate, Mick Schumacher, also couldn’t make the start after his huge shunt yesterday left the team without enough time or spares to rebuild the car. Thankfully, though, young Mick was at the track and in good spirits despite the genuinely scary impact he endured the day before.

Top 10 finishers of the Saudi Arabian GP:

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The teams finally get a small breather after the sprint start to the season, as the next race will be in a fortnight — the return of the Australian Grand Prix after a two-year forced COVID hiatus. With the battle between Verstappen and Leclerc now fully joined we’ll see who’s got the goods at Albert Park in Melbourne after a crazy, thrilling and sometimes scary weekend in Saudi Arabia. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!