Luke’s Weekend Review – Jeddah GP 2024

The Safety Car came in on Lap 9 and Norris leads the pack to the Start/Finish line as he managed to catch Verstappen napping a bit and it was all clean towards the front where we see Norris build a gap of just under a second by the end of the first lap after the restart which is crucial to break the DRS for Verstappen and stay ahead. A bit further back however the restart wasn’t so clean for Alex Albon as he finds himself being squeezed by Kevin Magnussen and the pair touch. Albon, not happy with this complains to his engineer about this saying that Magnussen didn’t leave him enough space, and this was then picked up by the stewards who slapped Magnussen with a 10 second penalty for causing a collision.

Magnussen wasn’t the only one under investigation during this stage of the race as Perez was being investigated for an unsafe release while pitting as he almost collided with Fernando Alonso in the pits as Red Bull were rushing to try and get their driver back on track and not get stuck waiting for other cars to go past in the pits. Stewards ended up deciding that they will give Perez a 5 second penalty for this move.

On lap 13 we start seeing some overtakes happen after the Safety Car restart as we see Verstappen reclaim the lead of the race from Norris while his teammate was able to clear Lewis Hamilton to get back into the Podium positions. On lap 15 we see some moves by the Ferrari boys as we see Bearman getting into the top 10 after some nice moves on the midfield drivers and Leclerc get into 4^th after he gest past Hamilton to get into 4^th. On lap 17 we also hear Hamilton come on the radio saying that they are killing them at high speed corners alluding that the McLaren are fast who at the time we see Oscar Piastri closing in behind him and on lap 18 Piastri attempts to get past Hamilton into Turn 1 but he goes off track as he fails to slow his car down and has to let Hamilton past.

On lap 18 we also see Perez get back into 2^nd place after the restart as he goes past Norris who was till out on his mediums which he started the race on. Bearman was not done impressing as on lap 21 we see him take a better line out of Turn 27 and get DRS assist as he makes his way past Hulkenberg. In lap 24 we see Leclerc starting to really close the gap on Norris in 3^rd and by lap 27 the Ferrari driver was able to get past Norris to get back into the podium positions.

Further back down the field we see Kevin Magnussen get another 10 second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage on lap 22 as we see Magnussen make a move on Tsunoda into turn 1 but wasn’t able to slow the car down enough and went wide into turn 2 and stayed ahead of Tsunoda. This is a new rule that was implemented as it was previously 5 seconds, but drivers complained that this is not severe enough as drivers who got a 5 second penalty in the past were able to build a big enough gap and still finish ahead. This however might have been part of the plan for Haas as Magnussen from this point onwards started a bit of a DRS train holding back a few drivers creating a big enough gap for his teammate Hulkenberg to pit and still come out ahead so that he can get points.

Annoyed at the situation, Tsunoda tries to make a move into turn 1 on Magnussen and was able to get side by side but Magnussen was able to stick with him and get past him again by turn 2 and this move cost Tsunoda dearly as Esteban Ocon was able to take advantage of the situation and make it past him, on lap 33 Alex Albon also makes a move on Tsunoda and manage to get past by braking late showing off some great skills. Magnussen’s work paid off nicely holding off the pack as on lap 35 we see Hulkenberg go into the pits and come back out in 11^th ahead of his teammate Magnussen which basically guaranteed him points as Zhou was still out and yet to pit in 10^th.

A bit further ahead of this, Hamilton was giving us a masterclass in defending as he was still out on the mediums and managing to stay ahead of Piastri but it was at lap 35 where we see Piastri finally managing to get past Hamilton again but it was De Ja Vu as Piastri goes wide in turn 2 again and had to give the position back to Hamilton. After a 20 lap battle Hamilton pits on lap 37 which frees up Piastri to finally get past but at this point the damage was done, and he was unable to get close to Leclerc to fight for the podium. On lap 38 Norris also pits to cover off Hamilton and then it was a question of whether Hamilton would be able to get past Norris and will either of the pair be able to get past Bearman who was driving in 7^th at this stage of the race.

The battle between Hamilton and Norris was quite tense as we see Hamilton try a number of attacks on Norris but the McLaren was too fast in the high speed corners while the Mercedes was gaining a lot on the straights, so much so that Norris got shown the Black and White flag for weaving too much on the straight to defend from Hamilton.

Max Verstappen ends up taking the chequered flag followed by his teammate Sergio Perez getting the 2^nd successive 1-2 for Red Bull this season, then came Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Fernando Alonso, George Russell, Oliver Bearman, Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton and Nico Hulkenberg formed the top 10. Leclerc was able to clinch the fastest lap on the final lap while driver of the day goes to Bearman who had an impressive debut drive scoring some amazing points for himself and Ferrari.

Who do you think was the biggest winners and the biggest losers of the Jeddah GP? We now head into a week break before we get back on track in Melbourne at Albert Park for the Australian GP.