The fourth instalment of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit was another tame affair for F1. Which is quickly becoming known more for what is happening behind the scenes rather than what is on track.
In spite of this, there is a feel-good story to report as a super-sub made a cameo for a prestigious team. Find out how he got on, as well as some other star performers and strugglers, from round 2 of the 2024 F1 season:
Top of the class:
Oliver Bearman – Qualifying: 11th | Race: 7th
From F2 pole to driving a Ferrari in your debut F1 race in the space of 48 hours, it certainly wasn’t a shabby weekend of work for Ollie. The 18-year-old, who is part of the junior system, stood in at late notice for the unwell Carlos Sainz (more on that later) and put in a stellar performance in Jeddah.
Having just one practice session (FP3) to adjust to the SF-24, Ollie rose to the challenge and was just 0.036 seconds from making it into Q3 in qualifying. Lining up P11 was quite advantageous, as it gave the Brit some room to gamble on strategy.
Though the soft tyre launch didn’t gain him any places, he held on well to his starting position in the early stages. He then pounced on the VCARB of Yuki Tsunoda on the Safety Car restart, with a lovely move down the inside of turn 1, which deserves all the kudos.
From there, his job was simply to bring the car home. Running P9, he then moved to seventh as Lando Norris (McLaren) and Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) had to pit late owing to not stopping under the early caution.
Despite his inexperience, Ollie marched the pace of the chasing duo on their soft tyres. He crossed the finish line P7 and claimed 6 points on 40+ lap old hard tyres. A haul of points which may be more than what some of the teams will score this season, judging on early form.
His efforts rewarded him the title of driver of the day, which was a thoroughly deserved bonus. We may not see him again in F1 this season, but I do recommend following Bearman’s progress in F2. Although bizarrely, he sits last in the standings.
Haas
Nico Hülkenberg – Qualifying: 15th | Race: 10th
Kevin Magnussen – Qualifying: 13th | Race: 12th (demoted from 11th due to penalties)
It seems strange to praise a team who suffered both reliability issues and some driving infractions across the weekend, but Haas played the ultimate team game to score what could be a vital point.
Nico suffered an engine cut in Q2, which consigned him to 15th on the grid. Magnussen’s prospects were slightly better, as he started one row ahead. In the race, it was KMAG who stole the spotlight for both the wrong and right reasons.
The Danish driver copped the Stewards’ attention twice, once for completing an overtake off-track against Tsunoda at turn 4. Before getting their attention once more a couple of laps later, as he squeezed the Wiliams of Alexander Albon into the wall at the same corner, causing floor damage.
Yet, because he had done his pitstop, Magnussen drove to the chequered flag. Meaning his 2x 10-second penalties added to his race time. All Hülkenberg’s side of the garage had to do, was execute a quick late pitstop and come out ahead of Magnussen who was holding up a gaggle of cars from P11 downwards.
It was mission accomplished as the Dane was running about 2-3 seconds off the pace, leaving Nico a nice gap to slip into after he pitted. The German crossed the line to claim his first Grand Prix point since the 2023 Australian Grand Prix.
The gap between the top 5 teams and the rest of the pack is rather large at this point of the season. It seems the likes of Haas, Alpine, Williams, Sauber and VCARB will have to rely more on errors and reliability of those in front to pick off points than getting them through pure car performance. However, with the considerable progress the American team has made with its tyre wear woes that have plagued them, it feels they are in pole position to be picking up the points.
Oscar Piastri – Qualifying: 5th | Race: 4th
Jeddah’s proven to be one of Oscar’s best tracks, with the Aussie taking 2 wins in his title-winning F2 season in 2021 and getting into Q3 with a struggling McLaren this time last year.
Fast forward to 2024, and Piastri had another solid weekend despite the team’s lack of performance with DRS. He outqualified and finished ahead of teammate Lando Norris and made a crucial early race move on Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso to secure his best result since Suzuka 2023.
Piastri finds himself 5th in the Championship. The early signs are all there that he’s taking another step forward following his highly-praised rookie season.
Honourable mentions go to Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, Max secured his ninth consecutive race win with a crushing drive from pole, whilst Lerclec scored his first podium of the season and took the fastest lap point on the final lap with over 40 laps old tyres.
The struggle bus:
Lance Stroll – Qualifying: 10th | Race: DNF
If round 1 was one of Lance’s best races for a while, this one definitely was one of the worst. A whopping seven-tenths covered him from teammate Fernando Alons in qualifying, whilst the Spaniard has a special pedigree for putting cars higher up than they should, Stroll seems to have the opposite impact.
Race day lasted just five laps before a lock-up into turn 22 put him on a ride into the barriers, bringing out the one and only Safety Car in the race. With Alonso taking home P5 and a decent haul of points, these incidents make it difficult to defend Lance with a whole host of talented drivers being kept out of F1.
VCARB
Yuki Tsunoda – Qualifying: 9th | Race: 15th (demoted from 14th due to penalty)
Daniel Ricciardo – Qualifying: 14th | Race: 16th
The last sentence about Lance I’ll be mirroring for this driver pairing, who have had a thoroughly underwhelming start to 2024. Despite Tsunoda having a decent qualifying on Friday, it soon unravelled on Saturday.
Losing a position to KMAG unfairly, it took him several laps to get back past. And when he was finally able to use DRS down the pit straight, he displayed some poor racecraft to let the Haas driver back through into turn 1.
Yuki then lost further positions to Ocon and Albon, before a time penalty for an unsafe release that took place before the race even started dropped him behind Logan Sargeant into 15th.
Ricciardo’s performance in Saudi Arabia can be summed up in one word, dire. Nearly half a second off Tsunoda in qualifying, and a half spin at turn 2 when he was racing thin air, meant he came home a lowly 16th. Though he wasn’t exactly aided with a 41-second+ pitstop during the safety car. Maybe he was just distracted by the noise from the off-track events.
With Liam Lawson waiting in the wings for a full-time seat, neither of these drivers are really justifying their place on the grid in the opening two rounds, but it is a long season ahead which leaves them plenty of time to rediscover their mojo.
Pierre Gasly’s Alpine:
Well, Bahrain was a disaster for Gasly, but at least he was able to take the chequered flag. This time around his race was over before it began.
Having improved qualifying from 20th in round 1, to 18th in Saudi Arabia, Pierre reported a gearbox issue on the formation lap. Gingerly taking the race start, he was then forced to retire the car on lap 1, becoming the first car to DNF in 2024.
It will also be no consolation to him that he finds himself 21st in a 20 Driver Championship, though this is more indicative of Alpine’s plight than of his abilities.
Dishonourable mention firstly goes to Carlos Sainz’s appendicitis, which sidelined him from racing. At least he saw the humorous side of recreating a family photo with his Dad, Carlos Sainz Sr, who once suffered from the same illness. The other goes to Sauber, who repeated their Bahrain pitstop fiasco. This time with Zhou Guanyu, who suffered a lengthy delay.
With the first two events done, the teams will have a little rest to recuperate, with most heading to the drawing board following a disappointing start to the season. They’ll be back racing down under for Round 3 as F1 brings along F2 & F3 for racing at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne. Lights out at 4 am UK time on Sunday 24th March so best get those alarms set early!
