It looked like business as very usual in Saudi Arabia, although Ferrari had several reasons to be cheerful as it leads the chasers
ALEX KALINAUCKAS PHOTOGRAPHY
FORMULA 1
If I look back at the last six, seven months, we are the team that have improved the most,” said Charles Leclerc after driving his Ferrari to third place behind the Red Bulls of dominant winner Max Verstappen and runner-up Sergio Perez in last Saturday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. “We are slowly closing the gap. The gap is still quite big. But if we keep working like that, I’m sure it’s a matter of time before we put Red Bull under a bit more pressure.” After a second dull race in a week to kick off the new campaign, F1 really needs Ferrari to reach that point fast. As it was, Leclerc ended up 18.6 seconds behind Verstappen, who notched up his 56th F1 win, his 100th podium appearance, and the first time he’s ever started off a season with two successive victories. Not that those comparatively ‘bad’ starts in 2021, 2022 or 2023 did the Dutchman much harm…
But, when you take a closer look at Leclerc’s Jeddah race and Ferrari’s weekend overall, not to mention Ollie Bearman’s excellent debut performance in place of Carlos Sainz, it reveals something intriguing.
The positives didn’t arrive at the start of the contest on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Polesitter Verstappen and Leclerc launched pretty much in underwhelming unison from the front row. It was a getaway Verstappen called “not very good, but good enough”.
But from third, Perez shot forwards fast in the other Red Bull, just as Verstappen swung across Leclerc and snipped off any chance of an attack the Ferrari driver wasn’t able to make anyway. When they slammed on the anchors for the Turns 1-2 left-right complex, Perez was actually up into second place. He moved over on Leclerc but “gave him the space into Turn 2”, which allowed a close fight to play out as the opening stagger unwound. Leclerc kept alongside Perez through the Turn 3 kink, then down the short straight to the near-90-degree Turn 4 left. Here Leclerc was in position to get back ahead and duly did.
Verstappen crossed the line with a lead of 1.2s at the end of the first tour of 50, critically depriving Leclerc of DRS – this was enabled on the second lap, due to the updated rules for 2024. On that second tour Leclerc shaved Verstappen’s
