Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Max claimed his 56th win of his career and his 100th podium finish, meanwhile Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez claimed 2nd place on the podium despite a time penalty early on in the race.
As the lights went out under the Arabian night sky, both Red Bulls got away well with the World Champion easily claiming the lead of the race from pole position. Meanwhile, starting from third, Checo was able to pass the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc around the outside of Turn 1.
However, Charles Leclerc held his nerve and the pair ran side by side until Turn 4 where the Monegasque driver had the inside line and allowed him to reclaim P2 from the Mexican.
By the end of the first lap, DRS came into play and allowed Checo to close in on the Ferrari. By the end of lap 3 and a good run out of the final corner, Checo managed to set up a textbook overtake under DRS and take second in the race going into Turn 1.
On lap 7, a mistake from Aston Marin driver, Lance Stroll, caused him to collide into the barriers. With the emergence of the Safety Car and the race neutralised, both Red Bull drivers were call in the pits to move onto hard tyres.
Max and Checo were followed into the pits by a number of cars. McLaren’s Lando Norris stayed out and claimed the lead of the race under the safety car followed by Max, emerging from the pits. Mercedes’ Hamilton also elected to stay on his starting set of tyres and split the two Bulls with Checo now sitting in 4th.
At the end of lap 9, the Safety Car left the track and we went racing again. Norris held the lead and was able to a one-second gap to Max, whose hard tyres where still warming up. But it wasn’t long until Max got his tyres to working range and got back into DRS range.
At the start of lap 13, Max shot past the McLaren and reclaimed the lead of the race. Meanwhile, there was unfortunate news from Race Control for Checo.
He was handed a 5-second penalty for an unsafe release during the frenzy of pit stops under the Safety Car. This didn’t affect the Mexican on track. Checo powered past Norris at the start of lap 18 to move back into 2nd place.
At the halfway point in the race, the Bulls had both built a strong gap between themselves and the chasing pack with Checo now more than a penalty ahead of the McLaren.
With a one-stop strategy for the race, and the two Bulls cruising and away from any major battles for position, Max came home to claim his 56th win with Checo 10-seconds ahead of the trailing Ferrari meaning the penalty posed no threat to his second-placed finish.
Reflecting on his early-race duels with Charles Leclerc, Sergio Pérez said, “Yeah, it was a nice battle early on, I had a good start, unfortunately I couldn’t keep him behind, I gave him space into Turn 2.”
“Lap 4 I went through and it was a shame that we got the penalty, but happily nothing changed and it’s another 1-2 for the team”
Having started the 2024 season of with a win, Max Verstappen said, “Overall, a very good weekend, very happy with the performance. We all had to do quite a long stint on the hard tyre and that was probably a bit longer than we would’ve liked. Very happy to have won here”
An incredible start to the season continues. The next race takes place down under with the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday 24th March.