Another race, another Red Bull one-two. Red Bull once again showing the superiority of the car that Red Bull's Principal Engineer Chris Horner has built for this year. Red Bull takes their 3rd podium for the 3rd consecutive race this season. Sergio Perez took his first p1 of the season but the magic was created by none other than Max Verstappen who snatched p2 from starting position of p15.
Verstappen nearly won this one, too, despite starting 15th thanks to his driveshaft failure in qualifying. Even though it was because of the safety car in the 18th lap which helped him coming close to 2nd position.
Verstappen was 4th at that time and was 20 seconds behind his fellow teammate. After the restart, Verstappen shortly overtook Mercedes’ George Russell and then Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. There were moments during the race when things became tense for both the Red Bull driver's as Verstappen was asking who had the fastest lap out of both and Perez was asking what lap time was Verstappen doing. It was later informed through ear pieces to both the drivers by principal director that "its not their concern". to which Verstappen replied well it concerns me, which clearly shows the ambition and aggression of the Dutch maestro.
Behind those two, Alonso, who was handed a five second in-race penalty for missing his grid box at the start, was justifiably thrilled about securing his 100th career podium, only to be stripped of it a few moments later when the stewards determined that he had incorrectly served his penalty, promoting Russell to third instead.
But after an appeal from his team, Alonso was restored to third after it was agreed that touching the car while serving a penalty did not break rules on "working" on the car.
It is clear by the 3rd race that Aston Martin are not playing around this season with their 2nd consecutive podium. Fernando Alonso has turned the disappointment of Aston Martin fans from last year to a huge ball of joy.
After all the praises we must mention the disastrous and disappointing performance of Scuderia Ferrari which are not able to capitalize on anything at moments it looks like the car has no pace comparable to Red Bull. In 2022, Ferrari was still Red Bull's big challenger, and Leclerc was a serious contender for the title. This year, none of that remains: after two races, Ferrari is in fourth place among constructors, and the drivers had to make peace with fourth and eighth in the drivers' standings. In Saudi Arabia, the team should have scored some precious points, but more than sixth and seventh place was out of the question.
"Overall, we can’t be satisfied with today’s result," judges Vasseur. "We did not have the speed we expected, and there was also a big gap in our performance level between qualifying and the race."
Mercedes is also another super team that is heavily struggling it looks like after winning 7 consecutive constructors championship they have lost their and spirit and ambition. It looks like 7 time world champion Lewis Hamilton has still not recovered from that dark night of Abu Dhabi 2 years ago in which he lost to Verstappen after controversial decision by former F1 racing director Michael Massi. Lewis finished in 5th position while his team mate Russell out performed him by 6.127 seconds to finish 4th in race, which shows Mercedes has a long way to go if they want to compete for constructors championship.
There are still 20 more races to go but by the first look its looking like a straight sweep by Red Bull once again and Max Verstappen to become 3 time World Champion which will put him in bracket of greats like Ayrton Senna.
The next race will be F1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix which will be held on 2nd April in the iconic Australian Circuit track.
0 Comments