A very controversial race for a controversial track – Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has always been a controversial topic this year. Whether the human rights violations taking place in the country. Or the labour rights being discounted for the workers who built the track. And now it’s a controversial topic after what happened in the race. This year having a really tight season, everyone was eager to see what could this race bring for the results. Fans who got their strong opinions even opened an original bet365 account to bet on it already!
Build-up
Especially with this track being the fastest street circuit in Formula 1, drivers really seemed to enjoy driving here. As the street circuits go, track is really narrow and overtakes are harder. Being a fast circuit makes things even more demanding for the car and the drivers. Kerbs were really a deciding point. We have seen many crashes or damages happening when the drivers went over the kerbs.
Charles Leclerc had a big shunt in second practice session after going over the kerbs on turn 21-22 complex. It resulted with him slipping towards the barriers. In the exact same place and manner, Mick Schumacher also had a crash in the race on Sunday. Which we will be talking about it later. Daniel Ricciardo was out of the second session of Qualifying having damaged his floor after going over a kerb. Lastly, the most important accident was Max Verstappen hitting the walls while he was on a spectacular pole position lap. Already being third on the grid, after his incident he remained in the same place.
Controversial race day
Tension was high as this could have been a title decider race. Max Verstappen was already 8 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton and 18 more points difference taken in this race would have meant that Max Verstappen can grab his maiden title.
After Schumacher’s crash, safety car was deployed. Mercedes taking advantage of the situation pitted early both of their drivers. Leaving Max Verstappen on the lead of the race. Unfortunately their strategy was in vein after race director deemed the damage to be too big and red flagged the race for the barriers to be repaired. This meant Max Verstappen who had not pitted earlier could get a free tyre change under the red flag and still stay on the lead. Most of the spectators watching found the red flag unnecessary and blamed FIA for helping Red Bull win the race.
Second red flag came right after the restart when Perez, Mazepin and Russell crashed out. Right before the flag Hamilton took the lead coming into first corner but Verstappen moved to the run-off area and made an illegal pass. While slowing Hamilton, this move also allowed Alpine’s Esteban Ocon to move to second place. During the second red flag race director had negotiated the situation with Red bull and “offered” them to give Ocon the lead moving Verstappen to third behind Hamilton. This situation didn’t helped and FIA even received more backlash.
More of Saudi Arabian Grand Prix…
After the second restart, more small incidents happened and there were a lot of debris on the track. Most of the race passed under the virtual safety car to clear the track. This added another backlash point to FIA’s post.
On lap 36 Verstappen making another illegal pass, he had to give his position to Lewis Hamilton. However a very sudden braking from him caused a small collision between them. Finally giving his position on lap 42, he overtook Lewis Hamilton back immediately without giving any space. For his illegal pass he also took a 5-second time penalty but still gave Hamilton his position back. Then Hamilton took the lead to finish the race first with a broken front wing. After the race he also got another time penalty worth of 10-second for causing a collusion.
Overall, all of this meant FIA had a really poor handling of the situations and people are accusing the organisation favoring some over others. Also, looks like the title race is not over as the top 2 contenders are now even in points. For whatever the future might hold tune into our tuning to our news section for more news!