Max Verstappen doesn’t fight: he starts from pole in the Sprint Race and wins his ninth race on Saturday (out of 14 contested). The Dutchman prevailed, but this time he did not dominate with a Ferrari close by, although not too close to attempt an attack. The three-time world champion used strong tactics to get the better of Charles Leclerc at the start after a less than perfect standing start: he squeezed him towards the barriers, while still leaving the Monegasque space to turn. Leclerc preferred to reason and followed, also because he had taken a spin coming out of the pits from Esteban Ocon’s Alpine which touched him, earning him a 10 second penalty.
Ferrari, without updates, gave the sensation of being able to keep up with Red Bull’s pace: Leclerc finished just over 3 seconds behind. A gap that fuels the Cavallino’s hopes by being able to modify the setup with the reopening of parc fermé before the GP qualifying. The SF-24 perhaps paid for an overly loaded aerodynamic solution which penalized the red on the straight. Crlos Sainz knows something about it as he was unable to attack Daniel Ricciardo for fourth position. The Australian, after an excellent qualifying, confirmed his performance in the race: his car was very fast on the straight, making the Spaniard look green as he tried in every way to overtake a rediscovered Daniel. The challenge was fair and fun.
Sergio Perez takes the third step of the podium by doing his homework: he was overtaken by Ricciardo in the early stages, but on lap 5 the Mexican showed that the Red Bull RB20 is worth more than its “cousin” car. At the start the restless Fernando Alonso took care of making a quick run: at the first corner he got stuck with the wheels of his teammate Lance Stroll and bounced into Lando Norris. The McLaren stopped immediately causing the safety car to come in to remove the MCL38, while Stroll retired as soon as he arrived in the pits. Also causing a bit of havoc was Lewis Hamilton who slipped into the hole left by Alonso: things went well for the seven-time world champion because his W15 didn’t avoid contact with the Spaniard and he emerged without damage.
McLaren took home a sixth place which was little compared to expectations: Oscar Piastri scored precious points, but the Woking team did not realize its potential. Nico Hulkenberg performed beautifully in seventh with Haas. Behind the German, Kevin Magnussen made a great start and recovered six positions. The Dane then lost his clarity and began to create an exaggerated cap: Kevin earned a 20 second penalty by closing Lewis Hamilton at every corner and often accompanying the Mercedes on the escape routes. Magnussen repeated the Jeddah stunt and ultimately finished 18th, last.
It didn’t go any better for Lewis Hamilton who had finished eighth on the track: the seven-time world champion got a drive through for not respecting the speed in the pit lane and so he finished 16th. The last one to score a point was Yuki Tsunoda who made a good comeback with Racing Bulls. The Japanese ended up in the little train created by Magnussen and was followed by Pierre Gasly’s Alpine and Logan Sargeant’s Williams.
George Russell was in difficulty after slipping to 14th position with the disappointing W15: he finished 12th behind Guanyu Zhou’s Sauber. Everything else was just cinema…
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