Saudi Arabian GP: a stunning Ollie Bearman steals the show from Verstappen in Jeddah!

(Cover picture: XPB Images)

Without a rival strong enough to face an unbeatable Max Verstappen in his Red Bull, Saturday night in Jeddah gives us a new star in the Formula 1 landscape: we're talking about Ollie Bearman, surprisingly seventh on his debut for Ferrari. We'll talk about his Grand Prix - and the GP in general - immediately after providing the final classification!

RACE CLASSIFICATION (LAP 50/50)

Win #56 for Max, podium #100 👏👏👏#F1 #SaudiArabianGP pic.twitter.com/bE8BLxA9lp

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 9, 2024

The telemetry data fails all of Red Bull's rivals: they will have to work hard...

In a race with a rather linear unfolding, the performance analysis does nothing more than validating the final result, especially as far as the three drivers on the podium (Verstappen, Perez and Leclerc) are concerned. Those guys showed a race pace superior to the competition, but - unfortunately for the show - even between the three of them the gaps were sufficiently large to avoid any possibility of a tussle for the top positions.

Analysis of the race pace held by the first 9 drivers at the finish line in the Saudi Arabian GP

Analysis of the race pace held by the 5 best teams in the Saudi Arabian GP

As can be seen from the graph above, in terms of performance expressed by the fastest cars there was simply nothing to be done against Verstappen and Perez, both in the first very short stint on Medium tyres and - following the Safety Car for the Stroll's accident (he's luckily 100% uninjured) - in the rest of the laps run on the Hards.

Unlike what we said in the aftermath of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the outcome of the race in Jeddah leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of those hoping for progress from Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes or Aston Martin. At the moment, only Ferrari seems to have a well-defined position as the second strongest car, while the other three cars mentioned appear rather inconsistent based on the track conditions on which they find themselves racing.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Despite this, Leclerc's permanence in second position today lasted only a couple of laps, enough for Sergio Perez to break into the Monegasque's DRS zone and overtake him, moving into his "natural" position behind Max Verstappen. When the race resumed after the Safety Car, further confirmation of the gap between Red Bull and Ferrari was provided by the difficulty (little for Checo, much higher for Charles) with which the two got rid of Lando Norris' McLaren, at that moment in front of them due to an alternative strategy that postponed his only pit stop.

Personal fastest laps in the race for the first 9 drivers to the finish line

It's a small consolation that, in the final lap, both Leclerc and his teammate Bearman managed to set faster laps than those of Verstappen and Perez: their race pace was lacking for a large part of the stint on the Hard tyres, approximately between lap 10 and lap 40... Speaking of Leclerc, there's also an important observation to make regarding the unfolding of his Saturday.

Analysis of the race pace held by Leclerc (P3), Piastri (P4) and Hamilton (P9)

As can be seen by isolating the laptimes of Charles himself in comparison to Hamilton and Piastri, it's clear how helpful Hamilton's presence between himself and Oscar Piastri's McLaren was for the Ferrari driver. For many laps, in fact, Lewis ran a defensive race against Oscar due to a strategy completely similar to that mentioned above for Lando Norris, i.e. based on delaying the pit stop as much as possible in order to perform a very short final stint on Soft compound tyres.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The reason why Piastri couldn't get rid of Hamilton from lap 10 to lap 36 (when the Englishman finally pulled into the pits) lies in the low top speed of his MCL38 against the W15 in open DRS conditions. A proper technical issue that the McLaren engineers will have to sort out quickly, if they want to hope for good results also when they'll have to start outside the first two rows on the starting grid: now it's almost impossible to even think of fighting in race trim with opponents whose cars have a better aerodynamic efficiency.

Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Coming back to us, as mentioned, Leclerc was lucky to have Hamilton behind slowing down Piastri: as soon as the Australian started to run in clean air, the pace exhibited was completely comparable to that of the Monegasque... I'm convinced that Oscar would have had some chance of a podium against Charles, although against the (still aerodynamically loaded) SF-24 it would have been difficult to perform an overtake. If anything, the pair would have finished the race much closer than the 14 seconds that separated them at the finish line!

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Behind the top four we find a couple of drivers who spent the whole Saturday shadowing each other, namely Fernando Alonso and George Russell. There was a small difference in pace between them, so much so that George's gap from Fernando fluctuated between 1.2 s and 1.8 s for most of the 50 total laps... In short, also today Aston Martin needed an immaculate performance from the Spaniard to patch over the shortcomings of an AMR24 which still struggles to find its dimension in the context of the top teams.

Bearman's masterpiece brings him up to seventh place, beating Norris and Hamilton!

In seventh position, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, we find the second Ferrari, the one driven on this occasion by the young Englishman Oliver "Ollie" Bearman. The 18-year-old drove a perfect race, in my opinion, where the main objective was to avoid making any mistakes or ending his Saturday on the barriers: from this perspective, a proper damage limitation was performed despite Sainz's absence, while the latter was in the pits in a supporting role after the surgery made necessary by his appendicitis.

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

This certainly didn't mean adopting a defensive race conduct, as Bearman had to perform numerous overtakings to recover from the 11th position in which - with a bit of bad luck - he had qualified yesterday. Even critical phases such as the race start or the pit stop were handled excellently, with a little help from Ferrari in starting with Soft compound tyres (being them more "grippy" than the Mediums) and an lucky one from the Safety Car, which allowed him to stop in much easier conditions than under green flag.

Comparative analysis of the stints performed by the top 9 at the finish line

In general, we witnessed a similar pace to that of his teammate Leclerc, who also covered most of his 50 laps in clean air: as can be seen in the graph above, the average laptime on the Hards for Bearman is frighteningly close to what Alonso and Russell set, who as mentioned were working to the best of their ability to try and overtaking each other.

In fact, when the pit stop situation became clear, everyone understood that Ollie would soon move up two positions from his P9 due to the mandatory pit stops by Norris and Hamilton.. And when the two emerged from the pit lane equipped with two sets of Softs (against the Hards that Oliver had had for many laps then) his first thought - as later confirmed in the press conference - was that he wouldn't have been able to keep the compatriots at bay...

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But in that moment we understood what the young man from the Ferrari Driver Academy is made of: after a quick consultation with his race engineer Riccardo Adami, he put together a sequence of personal fastest laps despite the fact that his strength was gradually abandoning him, and from his onboards we could see his neck being tossed left and right by the centrifugal force (without him being able to prevent it). Before anyone can assume a lack of training behind what we saw, let's remember that there's no specific preparation for the neck muscles that simulates the forces experienced by drivers while driving a Formula 1!

In any case, the forcing was enough to keep Lando and Lewis behind him at the finish line... When the cameras focused on Ollie at parc fermé after the chequered flag, his face revealed the effort for a race in which he gave his best in very difficult circumstances, and - at the same time - the enormous satisfaction of having finished in the points on his debut in Formula 1, in a special team like Ferrari for good measure. A weekend that Bearman will never forget, waiting for today's performance to bring him at the center of the driver market, hoping for a race seat in 2025...

A valuable point for Hulkenberg and Haas, now at the top of the midfield

Nico Hulkenberg in his Haas is the last driver in the points paying positions. Despite he performed a good race, probably it wouldn't have guaranteed him the world championship point which he instead achieved if it hadn't been for his teammate Kevin Magnussen...

Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

To understand the team dynamic that brought Haas in one fell swoop to sixth position in the Constructors' Championship (by virtue of the single point won), it must be said that Nico and his pitwall opted for a strategy completely similar to that of Norris and Hamilton. However, the German couldn't count on a VF-24 capable of easily recovering positions, in case he'd rejoin the track in traffic following the late pit stop: for this reason, Haas took advantage of the track position of Magnussen (who also had two 10-second penalties pending for a couple of borderline manoeuvres) ahead of a very large group of cars to slow them down as much as possible!

Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

When Hulkenberg came out of the pits, the plan worked perfectly and he found himself in one fell swoop ahead of Magnussen himself, Albon, Ocon, Tsunoda, Sargeant, Ricciardo and Bottas. In short, it certainly cannot be said that Kevin's "sacrifice" didn't bear fruit for the team.

Still on the subject of the midfield and the back of the grid, little to report other than a terrible performance from the two Stakes by Zhou and Bottas, with many problems during the pit stops which unfortunately follow what was seen in Bahrain; but, even with quicker pitstops, the two C44s still wouldn't have shone.

For them, as for everyone else, there will now be two weeks before returning to the track at the Australian Grand Prix. As always, here we'll analyze and comment on what will happen over the Melbourne weekend; in the meantime, I remind you that you can also find Race Analysis on Instagram, Threads, X and YouTube. See you soon!