2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Review
Charles Leclerc, Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2024, source: ferrari.com
The 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was a collage of positive, neutral and negative emotions rolled into one high-speed circuit. You could find just about everything in this year’s race, and it has made for a unique thrill that is hard to compare with anything else.
With a strong showing from Ollie Bearman, a disappointing qualifying for Mercedes, and an educative set of laps for Piastri, it is time to review everything we witnessed in Saudi Arabia over the weekend.
Verstappen Breaks another Record
With this weekend marking Verstappen’s 100th podium, his win in the Grand Prix has solidified him among a unique class of drivers. Max is a truly remarkable talent that is set to dominate the rest of these current Formula 1 regulations. We might not see anyone challenging him until 2025 or 2026.
The Perfect Job Interview for Ollie Bearman
Getting in a Formula 1 seat is one of the tallest orders one can expect from a young driver. Especially one that has only ever had free practice sessions with a Haas car. For Ollie Bearman, diving into Carlos Sainz’s seat during FP3 was nothing short of a dream and nightmare rolled into one. Thankfully, the young Brit showed a lot of courage and adaptability. He was able to keep it together in one of the most challenging circuits, driving the car into Q2 and missing Q3 by a few hundredths.
During the actual race, Bearman was able to display a lot of patience and raw pace against even more experienced drivers. He had the most overtakes during the Grand Prix and brought home the car in P7.
Right now, the young drivers’ market is buzzing with a lot of promising talent. A lot of eyes will be on drivers like Bearman and Liam Lawson, especially given their stints in F1 cars.
Disappointing Display from Mercedes
Mercedes recently revealed that their simulator might be feeding off wrong information on the car. This revelation is interesting and a potential setback for the team. With simulation data being wrong, there’s a high chance that the team could actually be further back in terms of competitiveness compared to what they might have initially anticipated.
Their qualifying pace was disappointing compared to their closest rivals in Aston Martin and McLaren. Its clear that some work will need to be done in the coming weekends to learn more about their 2024 car.
Battle for Points
At the lower half of the grid, we got some interesting battles between a few of the drivers. The highlight of this race was perhaps Kevin Magnussen’s brave and sometimes aggressive driving style. His antics netted him 20 seconds worth of penalties in the race, but it was all worth it as he was able to hold off the rest of the pack and ensure a 10th place finish for teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo had quite the disappointing weekend with his pace being off from teammate Yuki Tsunoda. He also had a spin towards the end that could have caused some damage to the car. Red Bull’s Helmut Marko emphasized that Ricciardo’s form would need to improve if he had any hopes of becoming a first team driver.
Verdict
Overall, it was a challenging weekend for many of the drivers. However, a few teams have some positives to leave the weekend with.
