Winner – Oscar Piastri
Credit: By Courtesy of Pirelli.
After taking his fifth grand prix win, Oscar Piastri has also taken the lead of the drivers’ championship and now sits 10 points ahead of Lando Norris in P2.
His impressive performance in Jeddah showed that he can still remain calm and collected even under moments of adversity, further proving himself as a potential future world champion. McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said that Oscar looked “like a veteran”, despite it only being his third season in Formula 1, further proving this point.
Speaking on the controversial turn 1 incident involving Max Verstappen overtaking off track, Piastri said, “once I got on the inside, I wasn’t coming out of Turn 1 in second.”
“I tried my best, obviously the stewards had to get involved but I thought I was plenty far enough up and in the end that’s what got me the race. So yeah, very happy with all the work we’ve been doing with the starts and that’s what won us the race today.”
With Piastri now in the lead, it’s the first time an Australian has led the drivers’ standings since Mark Webber was in the top spot after the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix.
Losers – Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly
No driver wants to end up in the wall on lap 1, but that’s exactly what happened for Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly who collided with each other in Turn 4 after the race start.
While it did look like Yuki Tsunoda had escaped with minimal damage, once he was called into the pits for the team to check over the car it was determined that he should retire from the race to avoid causing further damage.
Both drivers delivered strong performances in Saturday’s qualifying and were well positioned to score points in today’s race, with Gasly starting in P9 and Tsunoda in P8. However, in Formula 1, even a small mistake can prove costly, and unfortunately they’ll both leave Saudi Arabia empty handed.
“It’s never a nice feeling to end the race on Lap 1 after an incident,” Gasly said. “It’s a long time since I had a situation like this and it is a disappointing one for all of us at the team to take.”
Tsunoda echoed these thoughts, saying, “it’s painful to collide with anyone, especially Pierre as we are friends, and this was not ideal for either of us as at the end of the day we are fighting for points and success, and my goal is to achieve as much as possible every weekend.”
Winner – Williams
It was a spectacular race under the lights for Williams, as some fantastic teamwork and DRS tactics allowed them to hold off Isack Hadjar to secure a P8-P9 double points finish – their second of the year.
While Alex Albon has been the majority points scorer for the Grove-based team so far this season, Carlos Sainz has added four to his, and the team’s, tally with this result.
“Solid day!” said Carlos. “We’ve been strong throughout the race, first on the Medium tyre and then coming through the field on the Hard tyre with good overtakes until the chequered flag.”
With Hadjar set to be a threat to Albon’s position, Sainz was employed to give his teammate DRS for the remainder of the race in what worked out as a race-forming defensive call.
“We managed it perfectly and secured an important double points finish for the team,” concluded Sainz.
These important 6 points earned in Jeddah puts Williams up to P5 in the constructors’ standings, something team principal James Vowles was understandably happy about.
“We are so fortunate to have two world-class drivers at the top of their game, and today you saw how that pays off. Today was about the team, not an individual, and I couldn’t be prouder.”
Losers – Kick Sauber
Jonathan Wheatley, Sauber’s team principal, summed up their weekend as “another long, hard” run, with Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto finishing P15 and P18 respectively. Although both drivers managed clean races – despite Bortoleto coming close to disaster after a near miss with Fernando Alonso – the car simply lacks the race pace to be truly competitive.
Though this may be the case, Wheatley believed the team extracted the most they could out of their package with Nico Hulkenberg’s P15 today. It’s a result Hulkenberg said came after “the most demanding race of the season so far” but one that could have been better for them had they had the chance to capitalise on safety cars further into the race that never came.
Bortoleto mirrored what Hulkenberg felt about the demands of the Jeddah track at these higher temperatures, saying it was “really tough”. The rookie came into this race lacking track time after having issues earlier in the weekend, which ultimately made his race a learning experience.
He said he’s used it to learn more about everything F1 has to offer, “from how we prepare, to managing setbacks, and understanding just how important every session is.”
“I’ll take the lessons from this weekend and head to Miami ready to fight, in a better place and determined to make the most of everything I’ve learned so far in my first five races.”
Wheatley feels with this learning the team are “in a good position to focus the development direction for the C45”, and for them, improvement in pace can’t come soon enough.
