Saudi Arabia GP: Max wins, Ollie scores on debut
Max Verstappen continues his winning streak in Saudi Arabia. Ollie Bearman debuts directly in FP3, that too in a Ferrari and straightaway scores points.
Max output for Ollie in Saudi Arabia
It was an insane roller coaster ride for Ollie Bearman this weekend. He is in the Ferrari Driver Academy and reserve driver for Ferrari F1 team. Currently he is driving in F2 with Prema Racing. F2 is also going on this weekend and Ollie managed to put his car on Pole. However things were about to turn very quickly for him. Carlos Sainz was having stomach issues this weekend and was diagnosed with appendicitis, which required a surgery to fix and ruled him out for the weekend. He went through the motions for FP1 and FP2 but headed to the hospital after that. This meant that Ollie had to be his replacement and take over Carlos’ car. He had only FP3 session to practice and head straight into Qualifying on this very fast and tough Saudi track.
Ollie narrowly missed out on Q3 by 0.036 seconds. Starting P11 Ollie did a great job of managing the race and finished ahead of Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton to finish P7 and score points on this debut. The 18 year old must be super-happy with his performance although it is expected that Carlos will be back in his car in Australia, two weeks from now. Still it was a very impressive debut and Ollie firmly put himself in the limelight for a potential F1 seat in the future.
Max continues shining in Saudi
Red Bull team may be facing a lot of issues off-track with their team in a turmoil but on track they are the dominant champions. Max Verstappen continues his winning streak, starting from Pole and going on to win the race. There seems to be no challenger to him. He is in a league of his own and in the prime of his career. Sergio did a good job of starting from P3 and finishing P2, which is the best that is expected from him. Charles did a good job in quali and put his car on the front row. However his race pace was no match to the Red Bulls and he finished in the final place on the podium.
Oscar Piastri did a good job too and finished P4, which is the max you can expect from the McLaren. Lando would be a bit disappointed to finish P8. Mercedes again did not have the pace to challenge even Ferrari and were struggling against McLarens. Russell finished P6 and Hamilton P9. Alonso did a super-job in this Aston Martin to hold on to P5 while his team-mate Lance crashed in the barriers. Hulkenburg did super to finish in the final point position, albeit with a solid help from team-mate Kevin Magnussen who slowed things down to keep other cars at bay. Albon narrowly missed out on points in P11. Daniel Ricciardo had another disappointing race as he finished P16.
Saudi Arabia Race Classification : Max wins another one
