Martin Brandl on the results of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

      Former Formula 1 racer and Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brandl summed up the results of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix…

      On Saturday, Max Verstappen drove a fantastic lap that allowed him to take pole position in Jeddah. Perhaps he was helped a little by a timely slipstream from teammate Yuki Tsunoda, Lando Norris, who had an accident, and the clever thought of the Red Bull pit wall staff, who decided to fill him up with fuel for two fast laps in the remaining few minutes after the red flag.

      You won't find many people in Formula 1 and beyond who don't consider Max to be the best at the moment, but Oscar Piastri is learning fast at McLaren, and although Verstappen has 163 more starts and Norris 82, the Australian has already won three Grands Prix this season, leading the championship. the world, and it will only get better.

      From second position, Piastri started better than Verstappen and easily took the inside radius of the first corner next to Max. This year, the rules have changed, now the rider who "wins" the turn, being closer to the apex, is not obliged to leave a place for the one who is outside.

      In this situation, the rider in the outer radius must give in and follow. This is done so that the rider outside cannot simply release the brakes or even accelerate, skip the turn and claim that he was ahead and had no room left for him, causing a fine to the rider inside. That's exactly what Max tried to do on Sunday evening.

      No one plays the rules as well as Max, but this time he lost. You can look at the incidents from different angles, discuss the scenario and doubt your first impressions, but speeding through the departure zone clearly gave Max an unfair advantage, allowing him to maintain the lead.

      Like many people, I had no doubts about the punishment. The stewards imposed a five-second penalty, commuting the penalty from the usual 10 seconds, as the incident occurred on the starting lap and in a tight fight.

      As a result, Max lost the race by 2.8 seconds. Perhaps if the team had told him to return Piastri's position immediately, he could have won. On the other hand, he was driving first, on a free track, which helped protect his tires, brakes and engine from overheating and provided him with a high pace throughout the first leg. Maybe it was worth getting a five-second penalty for that.

      If there had been a wall, barrier or gravel trap on the outside of the first corner, Max would have been forced to give in and get behind Piastri's McLaren.

      Long after the finish, Max continued to resent the fact that "the stewards made a mistake" and that he won the turn, but he was simply forced out. So did Christian Horner, the team leader who came to support his rider. I understand that they have super motivation and endless conviction that they are right and everyone else is wrong. That's why they dominated for many seasons, but this season they didn't read everything properly and lost.

      Behind the leaders, Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly collided in turn five, crashed into the wall and had to get off. It was a typical incident on the first lap, but I have no doubt that if they had another chance, they would both have left more room for each other.

      Their collision allowed Lando Norris, who started tenth after an accident in qualifying, to win back a couple of places. Then the chase began, and the Hard tires on which he started turned out to be very useful.

      Norris quickly overtook Sainz and overtook Hamilton. Lewis was well aware that the measuring point for the interval between cars to activate the DRS was after the last turn, so he constantly passed Lando into this turn in order to then sweep past him in a long straight line along the pits.

      In the end, Lando realized everything, fell behind, and after three laps successfully attacked on this straight, but lost the time he could have won back. Maybe it cost him the podium.

      He got ahead of Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes and then came within sight of Charles Leclair's Ferrari, which impressively held on to the Medium tyres until Lap 29. According to the reverse strategy, Lando switched to Medium on lap 34.

      Piastri entered the pit lane first of the leaders on lap 19, George Russell on lap 20, and Verstappen on lap 21. After serving a five-second penalty, Max came out in a clean second place, a little over four seconds behind Piastri. They played a cat-and-mouse game until the checkered flag on Lap 50, but it always felt like Piastri had enough speed to beat Verstappen.

      On his only pit stop, Norris fiddled with the white lines and the speed limit zone at the entrance to the pit lane, which attracted the attention of race control, but he got away with it and continued chasing Leclair's Ferrari. As a result, Charles brought the Italian team its first podium of the year, while Lando was only one second behind.

      Russell finished fifth on heavily worn tires, seven seconds ahead of his teammate Kimi Antonelli. Overall, it was an unsuccessful race for Mercedes, which they called the worst of the season because they started third and fifth, and finished fifth and sixth.

      Hamilton finished half a minute behind his teammate Leclair in seventh place, although he showed a high pace from time to time. Now that Lewis is doing post-race interviews, it's very difficult to watch. He is unhappy with his performances, puzzled and disappointed.

      Carlos Sainz had a very good weekend for Williams, finishing eighth. He even slowed down the pace to give his teammate Alex Albon the opportunity to use DRS to defend against the attacks of the flamboyant Isaac Hajjar, who finished 10th and earned the last point in this race for Racing Bulls.

      Fernando Alonso was very unhappy after the race, saying it was the worst result in the last 25 years. He finished 11th after Liam Lawson was penalized 10 seconds, even though just two years ago the Spaniard in an Aston Martin was the only one who could keep a Red Bull in sight. During this time, Aston Martin has seriously lost its relative pace.

      McLaren leads the constructors' championship by 77 points, with Piastri and Norris taking the top two spots in the individual standings. But if they take points away from each other in future races, which is very likely, Verstappen and, to some extent, Russell will be ready to punish them for this.

      Norris needs a win in Miami to regain his position, but his rivals are getting better and faster.