The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend was a blast in more ways than one, with thankfully the action staying on track on Sunday and Max Verstappen winning a late race duel with Charles Leclerc for his first win of the season. Our thoughts and quick review of the second race of the season is here with our 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap, Review & Summary
Our review covers what happened in the race so you don’t have to in the laps that matter. Plus we throw in our Race Ratings, the Best (Great) and Worst (Grape) drivers of the race weekend.
The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Results, Lap by Lap, Review & Summary gives you just enough to catch up on Monday morning.
nd why not check out our Bahrain Grand Prix Power Rankings which highlight our driver of the season so far.
2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Results
THE LAPS THAT MATTERED
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Well here are the top laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Lap 0 – Mick Schumacher and Yuki Tsunoda don’t take the start. The Haas driver due to his accident in qualifying as a precaution to driver and budget for spare parts, and Tsunoda due to car problems after making it around to the grid.
Hamilton to start on Hard tyres from his lowly grid spot.
GRID – PER LEC SAI VER OCO RUS ALO BOT GAS MAG (HAM 15th)
Lap 1 – Perez makes a great start on the short run down to the first corner and holds first. Max Verstappen steals third from Carlos Sainz in the early corners. Magnussen pulls a nice move on Pierre Gasly. Further back small progress by Ricciardo and Hamilton who gain a place on the grid. Both at the expense of Alfa’s Zhou.
ORDER – PER LEC VER SAI OCO RUS ALO BOT MAG GAS (Overtaken by Norris into T1)
Lap 4 – George Russell overtakes Esteban Ocon for fifth. Further back there’s a good battle brewing between Norris, Gasly, Stroll, Ricciardo and Hamilton.
Lap 5 – A lap later and Ocon is being pushed by his team mate, and so Ocon tries to push Alonso into the pit wall. That would make Fernando very happy one would think. Ocon indeed has a history of prangs with team mates. Alonso finally overtakes on Lap 7 going into the first corner, with a tough but fair move. Ocon gets him back a lap later by overshooting the first corner braking.
Lap 7 – Perez doing it easy out in front 2.4 seconds to the good of Leclerc in second and a further second back to his Red Bull team mate Verstappen.
ORDER – PER LEC VER SAI RUS ALO OCO BOT MAG GAS
Lap 9 – The Alpine battle intra team battle now features Valtteri Bottas from Alfa Romeo and Kevin Magnussen. Tears pending. Meanwhile Max Verstappen and his team are discussing whether Charles Leclerc have some safety rear lights on, which he doesn’t. One presumes there will be a new email sent to the stewards.
Lap 12 – Lewis Hamilton passes Lando Norris for 11th down the back straight, and he’s on the hard tyre so could make some serious ground as the pit stops are about to start. Meanwhile, the Alpines are still fighting and swapping position.
Lap 14 – Lewis Hamilton into the top ten after getting past Pierre Gasly, and Valtteri Bottas gets past Esteban Ocon. Further back pit stops have started.
ORDER – PER LEC VER SAI RUS ALO BOT OCO MAG HAM
Lap 15 – Sergio Perez pits from the lead, a phrase not often used. Looked like Ferrari would pit Charles Leclerc too but sold a dummy to Red Bull. We’ll see who profits.
Lap 16 – Not for the first time in recent Grands Prix, Williams driver Nicholas Latifi is in the wall. And this brings out the safety car and a lot of pit stops.
Lap 17 – SAFETY CAR – The emergence of the safety car screws over Sergio Perez who ends up 3rd in the shuffled pack.
ORDER – LEC VER PER SAI RUS MAG HAM ALO HUL BOT
Lap 20 – Safety car still out there, which hurts those watching this live at three in the morning. Some discussion regarding Perez and Sainz. The Ferrari looked slightly ahead exiting pit lane but Perez cut him off. Safety Car coming in.
Lap 21 – Leclerc retains his lead, Verstappen holds second. Sainz gets past Perez into turn four. Looks like he was told to do so by his team.
Lap 25 – Lewis Hamilton gets past Kevin Magnussen for sixth place. A lap previous Bottas gets past Hulkenberg. As do more cars with each passing lap. Max Verstappen is moaning about something else on the radio.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER RUS HAM MAG ALO BOT OCO
Lap 30 – Not much happening other than the head doing 4am death nods. Leclerc is about 1.5 seconds in front of Max Verstappen in second. Four second back to Sainz, and first stint leader Perez is 7.5 seconds behind. Bottas v Alonso for 7th the choicest battle on track.
Lap 36 – After spending many laps trying to get past Kevin Magnussen, Fernando Alonso is rewarded by his car slowing to a crawl and retiring. Alonso’s sparring partner Valtteri Bottas also retires. Not to be outdone, McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo also retires lap later from his car overheating, his car sort of blocks the pit lane. Some cars enter pitlane in case there’s another safety car. Which there is – a virtual safety car. Lewis Hamilton is advised by his team to pit….50 metres after he passes the pit lane entry. He needed that too, as he remains the only car yet to pit for new tyres.
Lap 41 – Virtual Safety Car ends, and Lewis Hamilton makes his pit stop. He rejoins 12th behind Magnussen.
ORDER – LEC VER SAI PER RUS OCO NOR GAS STR ALB
Lap 42 – Max Verstappen has come alive and we now have some action at the front with a battle for the lead. Max Verstappen gets past Charles Leclerc towards the end of the lap, but Charles Leclerc retakes first down the pit straight. More great racing between these two at the front without incident.
Lap 43 – The two cars are still battling and sees both cars locking up going into the last corner and Leclerc holds his position on the outside.
Lap 45 – Leclerc has squeezed out a lead of 1.3 seconds, which gets him out of DRS range for Max Verstappen. Until he isn’t out of DRS range and Max Verstappen gets within and attacks down pit straight. No reward this time and Leclerc maintains lead.
Lap 46 – Max Verstappen patiently sits behind Charles Leclerc going into the final corner, and then nails the leader going down pit straight to take the lead. At least these two can race each other. It does help that Max isn’t quite the same level of jerk towards Leclerc as Hamilton.
Lap 49 – Max Verstappen looks like he has Charles Leclerc under control, the Ferrari just can’t get close enough to use DRS on the pit straight. Further back Lance Stroll and Alex Albon tangle. Albon retires.
Lap 50 – Charles Leclerc gets close but not quite enough to beat Max Verstappen and the Red Bull wins the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Further back Sainz completes the podium and unlike last year’s finale, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez will probably regret the Latifi crash. Much further back, Lewis Hamilton earns a point.
FINAL ORDER – VER LEC SAI PER RUS OCO NOR GAS MAG HAM
2022 Bahrain Grand Prix Results
RACE RATING
Was it a good race, loads of action, tense, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest.
We rate the big race itself so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 7/10
Still early days but important enough. The overall trend of which car is fastest is still not clear between Ferrari and Red Bull, but it is clear that those two teams are a mile ahead. Lewis Hamilton’s poor qualifying shows they won’t be fighting for the title and will be lucky to be best of the rest.
ON TRACK ACTION – 6 /10
Some good racing early, and for a while in the midfield, but not a great deal happening after the safety car. Lucky the race is at night, as it looks less boring than it probably would during the daytime. That’s until the final Virtual Safety Car and the last laps come alive with a battle for the lead.
ENDING 8 / 10
A resaonably dull race was livened up in the end by the Virtual Safety Car which closed the gap between Leclerc and Verstappen, and we were treated to some clean, fair racing for the lead for the final eight laps.
OVERALL RATING 21 / 30
Good ending, and some key themes for the season look like they are shining through, but it was a pretty dull middle section of the race.
2022 SEASON RATINGS SO FAR
Want to know what we thought of previous races? Or which ones to to back and watch?
2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Results
GREAT & GRAPE OF THE RACE
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. Five points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.
THE GREAT-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN
Takes his first win of the season after a fine duel with Charles Leclerc in the final laps. Made up for an underwhelming qualifying (4th) and his first race DNF.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
CHARLES LECLERC – Led the most laps, took second on the grid, finished second. An almost nearly type of Sunday.
SERGIO PEREZ – Took his first career pole. Dudded by first Safety Car. Still fourth and a pole won’t get him fired.
LANDO NORRIS – A solid 7th place for a car that still looks slow, and he nearly stole 6th from Ocon on the last lap.
THE GRAPE-EST – LEWIS HAMILTON
Had a shocker in qualifying, being cut in Q1 on genuine pace. Or lack of it. Ran an unspectacular race, which could have improved if his team didn’t miss the premium time to make his one pit stop after going most of the race on hard tyres. Ended up 10th which was the bare minimum achievement.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
MICK SCHUMACHER – Big crash in qualifying and missed out on racing. Which is a shame, as he was top ten in Q2 when he crashed, and Magnussen looked quite strong in the race.
NICHOLAS LATIFI – Another adventure into the wall, that also caused a lead change at the front.
DANIEL RICCIARDO – Whilst this race may be an improvement (he cleared Q1 and led his team mate in the race) it still ended in a DNF while his team mate’s car is curently in the points.
YUKI TSUNODA – Didn’t even get the chance to crash into the walls as his car wouldn’t fire up for the start.
2022 F1 Season Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race sometime tomorrow as it is currently being calculated.
