The second chapter of the 2022 Formula One World Championship was held at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia, the fastest street circuit on the calendar. Ferrari had a strong start with Charles Leclerc once again leading the race for the longest time. It was only during the final few laps that he lost to Max Verstappen after an intense battle. Fellow Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz secured the final spot on the podium. Five of the nineteen cars could not finish the race due to collisions or technical issues.
This was a rather special race, marking many important occasions. For instance, this was Lewis Hamilton’s 180th start with Mercedes. That is the most amount of races a driver has started with the same team. The record was previously held by Michael Schumacher of Ferrari. Sergio Perez was starting the race in the first position, making it his first time ever. Not only this, it was the first time a Mexican driver was starting the race in P1.
There was not a hint of doubt or deliberation in the eyes and driving of any of the racers, despite the scary crash Mick Schumacher had during the Qualifying yesterday. While Mick was not seriously injured, he did not participate in the race either. This left Hass with only one car on the track. The tyre of choice for the start of the race was medium compound for most drivers. The only people to go for hard compound tyres were Hamilton, Magnussen and Hulkenberg.
Max Verstappen was in attack mode from the get-go. The Dutchman managed a brave inside overtake in at Turn 1 to push Sainz back in 4th. Gasly had a rough start with two people passing him in the first two laps. But overall, the young Frenchman had a better outing compared to the last one as he managed to score some points with his P8 finish this time around.
Arguably one of the best battles of the race was between teammates Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon. Alonso almost found himself kissing the track wall because of his teammate Ocon defending his position during Lap 5. This was the start of a heated battle between the two Alpine drivers who occupied P6 and P7. Surprisingly, either of the drivers was not asked to back off until much later in the race. Finally, during Lap 14, Ocon was instructed to maintain his position behind Alonso. It just so happened that Bottas had access to DRS just after that and was able to overtake Ocon and get between the two Alpines. In a funny twist of fate, both driver that had passed Ocon, could not finish their race due to technical issues.
Nicholas Latifi of Williams Racing had another bad day as he crashed at the final turn during Lap 17. He had also crashed during Q1, the previous day. The team’s troubles did not end there as their second driver, Alexander Albon also had a late-race collision with Lance Stroll of Aston Martin. This resulted in both Williams Racing machines retiring from the race.
Latifi’s accident led to the Virtual Safety Car being released on the track. This proved to be a great time for drivers to jump into the pits for a quick tyre change without having to lose their position in the race. However, Perez had come into the pit lane just before the crash happened and the yellow flags were waved. This gave him a disadvantage as his teammate and the Ferrari duo came in for a tyre change when the race was briefly halted. This and an incident involving him and Sainz led to Perez dropping down to P4. The Mexican driver accidentally overtook Sainz despite the Ferrari driver coming out of the pits ahead of him by a small margin. Perez incurred a penalty and had to give up his position.
Fernando Alonso managed to find a good pace and seemed to be in attack mode but sadly had to stop by the pits because of the car overheating, leading to a loss of power. It looked as if this gave rise to a domino effect of cars failing as we saw Ricardo’s McLaren stopping mid-track. The Australian complained of not getting any power. Since he could not go to the pit lane, he had to wait on the track, just before the entry in the pit lane. Yellow flags were waved for the second time in the race. Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo was the next person to retire. He had come into the pits for what looked like a regular stop but did not resume the race.
Magnussen and Hulkenberg got their tyres changed just before the pit lane entry was closed due to Ricardo’s car stopping too close to the entry point. Hamilton was not so lucky, however. He had just crossed the pits when the flags were waved and the entry was closed the next time he came around. Hamilton had been running the same tyres for 40 laps and had slowly made his way up from P15 to P7. He had to come in for a tyre change once the race resumed and entry into the pits was open. Adding to the misery was a slow pit stop, costing the seven-time world champion more time than he would have liked. As a result of these unfortunate events, Lewis finished at the bottom of the scoring chart. This was way behind his teammate George Russell who performed quite well, staying right behind the Ferraris and Red Bulls.
Hulkenberg, who was filling in for Sebastian Vettel once again, put a valiant fight until Hamilton overtook him and then it just set a chain reaction of people passing him. This led to the German falling from P7 to P12 in a matter of two laps. Part of the problem was the fact that he has been out of practice for some time.
The last few laps saw the heat levels rise as a nail-biting battle ensued between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc. The defending world champion managed to stay close behind Leclerc while also telling on him at every possible point. The two exchanged positions a few times until Max finally managed to trump over Charles and there was no catching him after that. Leclerc still managed to clock the fastest lap of the day at 1:31.634. Ocon and Norris had a very close battle during the final lap of the race for P6. The two were racing almost wheel-to-wheel and it looked like the McLaren would come in front but Ocon managed to stay ahead when they crossed the finish line.
This was a much more exciting race compared to the opening race in Bahrain for sure. However, the icing on the cake was seeing Max and Charles chatting casually after their heated battle. The spirit of sportsmanship seemed to be on top here. Charles was even heard congratulating Max over the radio. We cannot wait for the next race in Australia!
2022 Formula 1 Saudi Arabian GP results (Top 10)
1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing)
2. Charles Leclerc (Scuderia Ferrari) +0.549s
3. Carlos Sainz (Scuderia Ferrari) +8.097
4. Sergio Perez (Red Bull Racing) +10.800s
5. George Russell (Mercedes AMG Petronas) +32.732s
6. Esteban Ocon (Alpine) +56.017s
7. Lando Norris (McLaren) +56.124s
8. Pierre Gasly (AlphaTauri) +.62.946s
9. Kevin Magnussen (Haas) +64.308s
10. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes AMG Petronas) +73.948s
