2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix | 5 talking points

1. A star is born at the 2024 Saudi GP

Poor old Carlos Sainz Jr. Gazumped out of his Ferrari drive for 2025 by Lewis Hamilton, he now found himself in a degree of pain following the first day of practice. A sudden need for an appendectomy forced the Spaniard to step down from duties in Jeddah – which meant opportunity knocked for Maranello’s teenage reserve.

Bearman had claimed pole position in Formula 2, but he was destined never to take it. Instead, he found himself drafted into Ferrari – of all teams – ahead of the third practice and qualifying, to make an astonishing landmark grand prix debut. The youngest British driver to start in F1, the third youngest of all and the first Englishman to represent F1’s most famous team since Nigel Mansell. It was quite a tale.

Missing out on Q3 by a scant 0.036sec bugged him, but 11^th in such circumstances deservedly earned Bearman credit. Then in the race, he progressed from there. Not losing his front wing in the early skirmishes was the first hurdle, then he settled down, pulled some fine passes on Yuki Tsunoda, Nico Hülkenberg and Zhou Guanyu, and held off another couple of Brits – only Lando Norris and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton – to scoop an excellent seventh place. No wonder the fans voted him driver of the day. Surely we’ll see him back again in F1 very soon.

2. A weird Saudi weekend for Verstappen

From pole position, triple world champion Verstappen was never likely to lose the Saudi Arabian GP – and how he scored his 56^th F1 win and ninth in succession was all too familiar. Depressingly so for his rivals. It all looked so easy, as Sergio Pérez made it another Red Bull 1-2 despite earning a five-second penalty for the team’s unsafe release into the path of Fernando Alonso at his pitstop, Checo having got the better of Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in the early stages.

But off track, once again a grand prix weekend was dominated by the strange turmoil that has engulfed what is easily the best team on the grid. The fallout of the complaint against Christian Horner’s personal conduct took further twists when it emerged the female member of staff it involved had been suspended, before a fresh storm blew up when news broke that Helmut Marko’s conduct was now under scrutiny for other matters. Verstappen showed loyalty to the 80-year-old ex-F1 driver with what amounted to an ultimatum: if he goes, I go. What, he’d walk away from by far the quickest car on the grid? Given the headstrong man he is, yes, he probably would.

On race day, word came that Marko’s place at the team was apparently safe, thus averting a plunge into crisis. For now. But the power struggle that is clearly playing out within Red Bull surely hasn’t been resolved so easily. How bizarre that a team operating at such a high level where it counts on track is in danger of ripping itself apart.

3. Hamilton vs Norris around Jeddah

Back to the grand prix. Hamilton and Norris found themselves locked in combat after both had thrown the strategy dice with nothing much to lose. Both had been out-qualified by their respective team-mates and when Lance Stroll clipped the Turn 22 wall with his front left and crashed hard into the Turn 23 barrier on the right the McLaren and the Mercedes chose to invert their races. As the other frontrunners pitted, they stayed out, Norris assuming the lead for a while until Verstappen blasted past, with a play to pit late and see where it left them.

They needed another safety car to have any hope of keeping the track positions they’d gained, and one didn’t come. So when Hamilton pitted with 13 laps to go and Norris came in a lap later, grippy soft tyres that soon went off would never be enough to pull something special. They rejoined together, Hamilton chasing Norris – in eighth and ninth. The McLaren driver’s weaving on the pit straight did him little credit, but towards the end, the pair closed in on Bearman. The young man was not to be ruffled. In the circumstances, the strategy ploy had been worth a shot – but on this day, with George Russell at the head of an all-British train from sixth to ninth, it didn’t work.

Incidentally, here’s a nice stat to throw in: this race marked the first time four British drivers had scored points in the same F1 race since the 1968 French Grand Prix when John Surtees, Jackie Stewart, Vic Elford and Piers Courage all made the grade.

4. Ferrari best of the rest

In Bahrain, Sainz had earned a fine podium. Here, it was Leclerc’s turn. He’d qualified on the front row and fended off Pérez at first – but although Ferrari is clearly best of the rest at this early stage of the season, the team still isn’t in the same league as Red Bull. How Leclerc fell away to finish 18.6 seconds down on Verstappen was disheartening.

Piastri was more than half a minute back in fourth, with Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin a few more seconds behind in fifth – so like last year, we have a closely packed chasing bunch, with form likely to swing across the season. But it seems impossible to imagine anyone landing a glove on Verstappen, or even Pérez as it stands. It’s going to be a long season, perhaps in more ways than one.

5. Hülkenberg makes his point

That packed midfield means scoring the odd point when opportunities arise will be more critical than ever for Williams, Sauber, RB, Haas and the sorry case that is now Alpine. That’s why Nico Hülkenberg’s drive to 10^th is so significant, especially in the wake of the Haas team’s dire 2023 season. 

This was a decent drive from the veteran, in contrast to the messy performance delivered by his team-mate Kevin Magnussen. The Dane earned a total of 20 seconds of penalties in the race – 10 for squeezing Alex Albon into contact and 10 more for breaking track limits in a move on Tsunoda. But he did play his part in Haas making its point in Jeddah, by leading a train of cars that included Tsunoda, Albon and Esteban Ocon and protecting Hülkenberg’s place ahead of him. That point could prove critical to the team come the end of this marathon season, as F1 next heads Down Under for the Australian Grand Prix later this month.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images