March 21 ------ Sergio Perez won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from pole position in a Red Bull one-two with Max Verstappen staying top of the championship after racing from 15th to second with the fastest lap. Double Formula One world champion Verstappen snatched the bonus point from Perez with a last-lap blast around Jeddah’s floodlit Corniche street circuit that left him a point clear of the Mexican. The result was Red Bull’s second one-two in as many races this season but a reverse of the March 5 opener in Bahrain.
Perez had also started on pole last year before ending up fourth after an unfortunate safety car, but this time he made it stick despite another such intervention. “That safety car again tried to take the victory away from us in Jeddah but not this time,” he said. “I was on for victory last year so finally I got it,” added the Mexican, who now has five career wins and finished 5.355 seconds clear despite the safety car cutting his early advantage. Verstappen now has 44 points, Perez 43 and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso 30. Red Bull have 87 points in the constructors’ standings with Aston Martin and Mercedes level on 38.
Alonso was third at the checkered flag in a 100th career podium for the 41-year-old double world champion, but the Spaniard was given a 10-second penalty after the podium celebrations and dropped to fourth. He was then reinstated hours after the race had ended following a stewards’ review of new evidence presented by the team. “I am happy in the end with the result tonight and our second podium. We showed that we can be the second fastest team and we had good pace throughout the race,” Alonso said in a team statement. The reversal meant Mercedes’s George Russell went from fourth to the podium and back to fourth again.
His seven-times world champion team mate Lewis Hamilton finished fifth and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was sixth. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was seventh with the Alpine pair of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly eighth and ninth and Kevin Magnussen taking the final point for Haas.
Source: sports.inquirer.net
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