Luke’s Weekend Review – Jeddah GP 2023

Fernando Alonso had a super start from 2nd place and taking the lead by turn 1 from Perez, however this was slightly overshadowed with a 5 second penalty for a start infringement where he was too far left and outside the grid box. This makes Alonso the second driver in as many races to have a start infringement. Alonso’s luck changed however and on lap 17 when Stroll had to retire on track causing a safety car due to what seemed to be overheating brakes, Alonso managed to pit and serve his 5 second penalty under the safety car while managing to keep 2nd place from Russell. Alonso managed to finish 3rd for the 2nd time this season which is a very impressive result from the Aston Martin Driver but the FIA later announced a 10 second penalty to Alonso dropping him to 4th due to not serving the 5 second penalty correctly giving Russell 3rd place. This was however overturned by the stewards after Aston Martin appealed the decision which reinstated Alonso’s podium finish.

It was flat out confusion for George Russell during the race as he wasn’t sure what was happening with Alsonso’s Penalties during the race. In the 2nd Stint we saw Russell not moving aside for Hamilton with the faster tyres as he thought that Alsonso still had to serve his 5 second Penalty, unaware that he already had served it under the Safety Car. And then towards the end of the race Russell’s race engineer told him to try and close off the gap to Alonso due to a potential infringement serving the penalty. George Russell got to enjoy 3rd place finish for about an hour after the whole confusion of the FIA with Alonso’s pit stop.

Lewis Hamilton was one of two drivers who elected to start on the hards and after a decent start not losing many positions to the cars behind on the faster compound, he still complained saying the hards weren’t offering much grip for him. When the Safety Car later came out Hamilton pitted for the mediums and his race came alive overtaking the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, but when he did catch up with his team mate he couldn’t get past and in the end finished in 5th place which for Mercedes I believe that was a great result to come in 4th and 5th overall.

We also saw some good performances throughout the field with Oscar Piastri having a better race despite the early contact with the Alpines on Lap 1, he managed to have some good wheel to wheel racing with fellow rookie Logan Sargent. The Alpines looked on form this weekend even though they couldn’t keep the Ferraris behind they still managed a respectable 8th and 9th. And taking the final point of the weekend was Kevin Magnussen after a good battle with Yuki Tsunoda on the closing laps of the race.

What did you think of the race? Who were your Biggest Winners and Biggest Losers of the Race? We will see you again in 2 weeks for the Australian GP where we will see if Red Bull can keep this good momentum up alongside with Aston Martin, and will we finally see Ferrari and Mercedes hook it up together to be a challenger for the podium?