Sergio Perez secured his second F1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and is poised to make good on last year’s lost potential.
Perez’s maiden F1 pole came at this track 12 months ago in a punchy start to life under the new rules. For the first part of the season he was on teammate Max Verstappen’s pace, and he pressed that advantage with a meritorious pole and the pace to win in Jeddah.
Only an early safety car prevented him from winning the grand prix that night, and we missed our chance to know a life in which Perez led Verstappen in the drivers championship.
But thanks to an errant drive shaft, Perez will get a second chance to make that prospect a reality.
With Verstappen starting way back in 15th and Perez on pole, the Mexican has every chance to not only take his lost victory but also put a few points on his teammate to lead the drivers championship for the first time in his career.
Can he get it done, or will circumstance — see: Fernando Alonso starting second — undo his good work yet again on Sunday?
VERSTAPPEN OUT — AND DOES RED BULL RACING HAVE A WEAKNESS?
He swept all three practice sessions and was comfortably ahead of everyone else in Q1. The car was hooked up and the track was improving as the night set in.
And then his drive shaft gave up on his first flying lap of Q2.
Without a time logged for the segment, he defaulted to 15th on the grid — doubly painful considering his Q1 time would’ve been good enough for fourth on the final grid.
But such is the RB19’s supremacy that even this lowly starting position is far from terminal for his victory chances.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said: “It’s been a very difficult weekend in terms of pace for us, but... On the other hand, Red Bull are on another planet.”
It was less than a year ago, at the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix, that Verstappen charged through the field from 14th on the grid to dominate the race, which he won by 17 seconds from his front row-starting teammate Sergio Perez and 26 seconds ahead of Ferrari pole-getter Carlos Sainz.
And one other driver has won from exactly 15th on the grid before: Fernando Alonso at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix. Albeit that was thanks to some underhanded tactics from his Renault team, which forced his teammate, Nelson Piquet Jr, to crash deliberately to trigger a decisive safety car.
Piquet Jr is the brother of Verstappen’s girlfriend, Kelly Piquet, but one doubts the subject ever comes up at the dinner table.
But his grid spot is less of a concern than the drive shaft failure itself, a relatively unusual problem, at least so early in a campaign.
Red Bull Racing changed the gearboxes of both cars this weekend, including Verstappen’s earlier on Saturday, just before final practice.
The team says the switches were planned as part of usage strategy for the season, but it’s not yet sure what’s behind Verstappen’s failed drive shaft.
Perez also took a new control electronics unit and battery on Friday, while Nyck de Vries in the sister AlphaTauri team needed a whole new power unit for qualifying.
We’ll have to wait and see whether this is the start of a trend that could render the team’s title tilt vulnerable or simply among the many reliability gremlins to have affected several teams already this season.
PIASTRI SUPERB IN ROOKIE SAUDI OUTING
There could be no more daunting a circuit for a rookie driver with only one significantly disrupted race under their belt to tackle, but Oscar Piastri took to Jeddah with aplomb to qualify for his first top-10 shootout.
He also beat teammate Lando Norris, a crucial early second tick in his maiden season.
Norris discounted himself from the running early with a small crash at the last corner in Q1. It broke his front-left suspension, which couldn’t be repaired in time for him to rejoin the session, leaving him 19th on the grid.
But Piastri came into his own as the track ramped up through Q2 to comfortably make the top 10 in a McLaren car that looked uncompetitive for most of the weekend.
He put his car ninth on the final time sheet and more than a tenth ahead of the more fancied Alpine of Pierre Gasly. He’ll be promoted to eighth on the grid by Charles Leclerc’s grid penalty.
Fernando Alonso was full of praise for the Aussie, saying: “I think there is nothing new; he has this huge talent.
“Very tricky place, so I’m happy for him and happy for McLaren as well.
“We need a strong McLaren as well in the fight.”
It was an excellent performance around the calendar’s most demanding street circuit on several counts.
First, the McLaren doesn’t really have much business being anywhere near the top 10 on a high-speed track like this. It’s carrying so much drag that Piastri was more than 10 kilometres per hour slower down the straights than, for example, the Alpine cars. He was 17 kilometres per hour slower than the slipperiest cars in the speed trap. His advantage over Gasly was built exclusively through the slowest corners, in particular turn 13.
And secondly, no rookie should expect to do well on their first visit — just look at his contemporaries.
Logan Sargeant tried three times but couldn’t string together even one complete lap in Q1, having had his first lap time deleted for track limits and then losing the next two to mistakes through turn 22-23.
Nyck de Vries was hamstrung by missing FP3 for a power unit change but spun his car on his first flying lap — admittedly a mistake that looked more car than driver — and lost his final attempt to scrappy final sector.
Maybe Piastri is a Saudi Arabia specialist — his only other visit here was in Formula 2 two years ago, when he dominated with pole and two wins, both with the fastest lap — but however you want to cut it, this was a marvellous night for the Melburnian.
ALONSO ON THE FRONT ROW WILL BE MUST-WATCH TELEVISION
Aston Martin might be almost half a second off pole — and that gap should probably be larger considering Perez didn’t improve with his second lap — but the green team won’t care given Fernando Alonso will line up on the front row.
Despite the different circuit layout this weekend, the AMR23 is still performing strongly, enough to solidify its hold somewhere between second and third fastest alongside Ferrari and ahead of Mercedes.
It doesn’t put the team in outright victory contention — no team other than Red Bull Racing really is at this stage of the season — but it does put it within striking distance when circumstance allows.
And circumstance this weekend is certainly shaping up in Aston Martin’s favour.
With Leclerc and Verstappen starting out of position and with Sainz caught up among the Mercedes cars and Lance Stroll, Alonso has a clear shot at Perez alongside him on the front row.
It sounds like dynamite.
There’s also something somewhat nostalgic about the fact that we might be about to be treated to a duel between these two drivers for an unlikely win. Long-time F1 fans might remember Perez’s pursuit of Alonso’s lead at the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix, his second season in the sport, as the race that really put the Mexican on the map.
He couldn’t beat the Spaniard that day, but in Saudi Arabia, fully a decade later, he’ll have the upper hand — but he’ll also need to be perfectly judged in defence against a driver he knows is going to hold nothing back in search of what would be a blockbuster victory.
FERRARI’S LOSS IS A BIG GAIN FOR MERCEDES
Ferrari needed to string things together this weekend to prove it’s in with a chance for the championship, but the Italian team has been scrappy and unconvincing throughout.
Ironically the only moment the team looked genuinely quick was on Charles Leclerc’s final lap in Q3 to put him second just before he was demoted 10 places on the grid with his power unit penalty.
Leclerc got to within 0.155 seconds of pole-sitter Perez, but the Mexican couldn’t improve on his second lap, skewing the results towards Ferrari. The gap should have been wider.
Carlos Sainz’s struggles were probably a little more representative of the team’s difficulties this weekend. He qualified fifth — up to fourth after penalties — at 0.666 seconds off the pace.
He’ll start behind Perez, Alonso and George Russell.
Russell has been the standout Mercedes driver this weekend as the German marque scrambles to squeeze what little pace is available from this troubled car. He hit upon a more stable set-up on Friday that he’s been able to carry through to qualifying, whereas teammate Lewis Hamilton has spoken about lacking confidence in the car to push.
The telemetry suggests as much. Hamilton loses most of his 0.366-second deficit to his teammate in the twisty first half of the lap and on getting the power down on the back half of the circuit.
Russell’s relative confidence in his car will give him a fighting chance of keeping Sainz at bay to secure an unlikely Mercedes podium. He’ll likely have a hand in that by having Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin car starting directly behind the Spaniard to keep him in a defensive position.
Things are only looking more grim for Ferrari on a day they should’ve been looking up.
