It’s been a few days since the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and it’s safe to say that there were some significant winners and some big losers following the 50-lap race. So let’s dive right into these winners and losers.
Winners:
Aston Martin:
Aston Martin has been the fairy tale story so far after the 2 races in the 2023 season, but what makes them even more impressive is that their pace is actually genuine and not just a 1 off in Bahrain. Lance Stroll, who is still suffering from his pre-season bike crash, is able to jump into that car without any pre-season testing and deliver a 6th place finish in Bahrain and was on for a good finish in Saudi Arabia before an issue curtailed his race but Stroll has adapted so well to this car that it’s actually good to see the talent that he does have. Now moving on to teammate Fernando Alonso and wow, the Spaniard might have actually made the right career move which is something to be shocked about with back-to-back podiums (the latter podium coming in weird circumstances but we will get into that later in the reading) but Alonso is really connected to that car quickly and the results are just showing what can be done with experience in the team. Alonso has back-to-back podiums in the first 2 races for Aston Martin which is more than what the team achieved since entering back into the sport and it’s just good to see.
Stroll made a move on the outside of turn 13 on the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, which was a stunning move from the Canadian and it would have been nice to see where he could have finished, had he not suffered a race-ending issue, after being jumped by both Ferrari’s in the pit-stops. Whereas Fernando Alonso was able to jump Sergio Perez at the start and was able to keep the Mexican out of DRS until the tyres fell off.
Sergio Perez:
Arguably Sergio Perez’s best win in Formula 1 and another win on a street track (Baku, Monaco, and Singapore prior to this latest win), and yes he was fortunate given what happened to teammate Max Verstappen the day before in qualifying but he still had to take what was on offer from that misfortune and he did. Once he got the lead back from Alonso he never looked in danger or than for a brief safety car appearance but he survived that restart to take a statement win. Now, what do I mean by a statement win, well since Bahrain the talk between fan bases has been “Can Verstappen really win every race this season?” and as much as we all believe that he could have done, Perez needed to shut everyone up and send a statement that Verstappen won’t have a 3rd title has easily as people believed and that is exactly what he did winning by 5.3 seconds over Verstappen.
Oscar Piastri:
As much as the race didn’t pan out well for young Oscar he was able to show what he had in qualifying but getting into Q3 and looked closer to teammate Lando Norris than what the gap was in Bahrain. The Australian was able to out-qualify Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and was just 0.020 off Lewis Hamilton while being under a second off pole position. As much as the race didn’t go the way Piastri would have wanted to have starting P9, there were plenty of positives to take from the weekend.
Alpine:
The French outlet had a better race than what they had at Bahrain but that wasn’t hard given Esteban Ocon’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Let us stick with Ocon and it was a performance that kind of went under the radar a bit with a P6 start, ahead of Hamilton and his teammate Pierre Gasly, and finishing the weekend with a P8 and 4 championship points which given the events in Bahrain, Ocon can be more than happy with the performance that he put in on the streets of Jeddah. Moving on to Gasly, a P9 qualifying spot turned into a P9 finish. It might not sound that impressive but given that Gasly is still getting used to the team and car then it is more than decent and it means back-to-back points finishes. It is a strong step forward for the team and for both drivers and one that they have to maintain at every race to try to finish 5th place in the standings assuming that Aston Martin keeps up their early season momentum.
Losers:
Ferrari:
For the team that was built up as Red Bull’s challenger for a 2nd successive year, the Scuderia has really not lived up to expectations. It’s already race 2 of the season and the reliability of the car seems to be worse than the 2022 car which is impressive given how poor that car was but a 4th place and a DNF in Bahrain were followed up with a P6 and P7, it almost feels as if this year’s car is already a write-off. Given the race pace of the Ferrari, the real question will be where they actually place in the pecking order. On the evidence of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, they’re looking like the 3rd fastest team behind Red Bull and Aston Martin but only slightly ahead of Mercedes which should be cause for concern at Maranello.
McLaren:
Pointless after 2 races for the first time since the McLaren-Honda lineup in 2017 with Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne and it looks like it could be a season of struggles for the Woking-based team. Norris’s qualifying ended before it even start after hitting the inside wall at turn 27 and McLaren didn’t have enough time to repair the damaged front left corner of the car. Another problem that the team suffered was 2 front-wing changes, Piastri’s came from contact at the start with Gasly while Norris’s came from the loose part of Piastri’s wing hitting the wing of Norris. Even with the intervention of the safety car, the overall pace of the McLaren is to be a concern with both McLarens more than 20 seconds off the final points-paying position.
The FIA:
For an organisation that would want to have a clean slate after what happened in Abu Dhabi in 2021, they’ve done a pretty pure job of doing that and to no surprise, Jeddah was no different. It all started at the start when Alonso was outside of his starting grid box and was slapped with a 5-second penalty which was served under the safety car but the rear jackman was deemed to have touched the car before the penalty was served. The part that makes the FIA look bad was that after the podium celebration was all done and dusted, the FIA slapped the Spaniard with a 10-second penalty that originally dropped him to P4 and promoted George Russell onto the podium. After reviewing the incident, Aston Martin lodged a protest to the 10-second penalty and the FIA reversed the decision some 5 hours after the chequered flag was waving for the end of the race. So after all of the drama off-track, Alonso was given his podium back and Russell remained in P4.
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