The Jeddah street circuit hosted its second Formula 1 race last weekend, and in both editions, Max Verstappen fought to the limit for victory. In the first attempt he lost the battle against Lewis Hamilton after a controversial collision, but the Red Bull driver was able to win in 2022 after a fight with Charles Leclerc and Ferrari.
For the Austrians , victory in Saudi Arabia is a breath of fresh air after the team suffered a double DNF on the first round of the season at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Verstappen, very strong in the strategy in the 2022 F1 Saudi Arabian GP
The team was able to overcome that disappointment with a victory in Jeddah, according to the Milton Keynes team’s CEO, Christian Horner : “It’s great to recover from what happened in Bahrain. The team worked hard last week to understand and solve the problems that we had”.
“What a great race. It was very strategic for Max, not asking too much of the tires so that he would have enough left at the end of the competition and be able to attack,” he said satisfied. “He and Charles [Leclerc] put in a great performance and luckily it ended up being like that at the end, I think Max drove very maturely.”
Verstappen and Leclerc swapped positions several times in the closing stages of the second round of the year with the help of DRS. The duo paralleled each other several times on their way to the final corner to avoid going through the detection point first and benefit from DRS.
The Monegasque had the advantage at the beginning, but finally Verstappen managed to overtake his rival: “He knew where he had to be, he completed the overtaking maneuver and then he had just enough to keep Charles behind him.”
“For the future, maybe we should look at where the DRS detection point is, because you want to avoid ending up in a situation like that,” Horner said.
Sergio Pérez’s fourth place in the 2022 Saudi Arabian GP of F1, a “big disappointment”
Across the Red Bull garage, Sergio Perez was disappointed as he took his first Formula 1 pole position on Saturday , and held the lead at the start on Sunday, but the safety car’s car stoppage ended all your chances of winning.
“This is very disappointing for Checo,” said Horner before explaining that the pit stop was made at the right time, it was premeditated with Pérez .
“He put in a great lap yesterday for pole, and converted it from the lead on the first lap. He controlled the race beautifully, and we stopped at the lap we had agreed to before we started,” he said. “And all of a sudden, a safety car showed up. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad, and today was very unlucky for him.”
