Magnificent Max nets his ninth victory on the bounce
Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen collected his second triumph this season, beating his runner-up teammate Sergio Pérez by eight seconds on the road.
However this gap extended to 13 seconds after the Mexican driver received a five-second time penalty for an unsafe release during the pitstop phase.
This result means that the Dutch three-time champion now has a nine-race long winning streak, equalling Sebastian Vettel's dominant phase that he achieved in the last of his title campaigns in 2013.
Verstappen said: "I'm very pleased to win here.
"Of course, after that first stint with the Safety Car, we had to box, and I knew that it was going to be a very long stint to the end. But of course, it was the same for most of us.
"I think we just managed the pace very well to the end, the car has been performing really well the whole weekend, probably a little bit better than expected even."
If Max wins next time out in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix, he will equal his own record of ten straight victories that he achieved during the 2023 season.
Brilliant 18-year old Bearman impresses on his Ferrari debut
Ferrari junior driver Oliver Bearman, who currently competes for PREMA Racing in FIA Formula 2, made his surprise Formula 1 debut this weekend at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
He became the youngest Ferrari driver in F1 history, breaking the record held by the late Ricardo Rodriguez since 1961.
After qualifying on pole for the F2 Feature Race, the 18-year old Brit, who is the official reserve driver for the Scuderia was called up to replace Carlos Sainz.
The Spaniard fell ill on Friday after suffering from appendicitis, which meant he could not compete for the rest of the weekend.
This opened the door for Bearman, who had only a one-hour long practice session to get to grips with Grand Prix competition before qualifying.
This practice came to an early end due to a red flag brought out by Sauber's Zhou Guanyu who crashed in the first sector.
The Ferrari rookie was on the backfoot going into qualifying, but put his car in P11 on the grid, missing out on getting into Q3 by a mere 0.036 seconds.
During the race he started on the softest tyre compound and struggled to make positions in the early laps, however this changed when Lance Stroll crashed on lap six.
The Aston Martin driver retired following an accident at Turn 22 which caused a Safety Car to be deployed, and a flurry of pitstops followed.
Bearman was running around the minor points positions until McLaren's Lando Norris and the seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton pitted with 13 and 14 laps remaining.
They were both expected to catch the rookie however the Ferrari recruit kept a cool head to finish seventh, the best debut result since Felipe Nasr scored fifth in his first race in 2015.
Bearman said: "The stars have aligned.
"It feels like such a quick progression in my career from driving in F4 in 2021.
"I only did my first F1 test a few months ago so to make my debut in red is hopefully a sign of things to come.
"I had no warning. I woke up this morning fully prepared and ready for my F2 race and then I got the call just a couple of hours before FP3.
"It's not the circumstances I would have liked to make my debut in and I wish Carlos well but nonetheless, it's a fantastic opportunity."
It doesn't rain or pour in the desert... unless it's for Alpine
Alpine started their 2024 season in Bahrain by locking out the back row of the grid before finishing 17th and 18th on race day.
However their race in Jeddah somehow managed to be worse than that, as Pierre Gasly was the first driver to retire as he had gearbox failure on lap one.
His teammate Esteban Ocon managed to finish 13th, ahead of five cars on merit, however this is still an embarrassing return for such a successful team.
The outfit that won the 2005 and 2006 titles with Fernando Alonso under the guise of Renault, is a shadow of its former self.
They have to improve their results rapidly or their two race winning drivers may look elsewhere for employment.
Pressure at Haas... through no fault of anyone
The Haas drivers Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen had an unspectacular race in Saudi Arabia, with the former scoring a point for tenth place.
However they will be under pressure for the remainder of the season as thanks to the surprise performance of Oliver Bearman, it's highly likely he will join the American team in 2025.
That means one of the current drivers will have to vacate their seat if the Ferrari junior gets promoted to a race seat with their affiliate team.
Extra pressure will be placed upon Hulkenberg and Magnussen, who have both revived their careers following time spent out of the top level of motorsport.
Hulkenberg spent most of the 2020 and 2022 seasons and all of the 2021 season on the sidelines before returning with Haas in 2023.
He partners Magnussen who came back himself in 2022 after spending a year out of F1, replacing the ousted Nikita Mazepin following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Mercedes and McLaren battle between themselves
Mercedes and McLaren continued their battle for third best in the constructor's standings as Oscar Piastri was the highest placed driver from either team.
The Australian was stuck behind Lewis Hamilton for a large portion of the race before the seven time champion pitted towards the end.
While Hamilton's and Norris' alternate strategies failed to materialise, Piastri and the other Mercedes of George Russell finished fourth and sixth respectively.
This means the Woking team move to third in the constructor's championship ahead of their aforementioned rivals.
Leclerc establishes a rhythm
While his teammate grabbed all the paddock attention, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc impressed by finishing only three seconds behind Sergio Pérez also claiming the fastest lap.
After finishing fourth in Bahrain behind his regular teammate, Leclerc pounced on the opportunity to claim a podium in the second round of the year.
Providing Sainz makes a likely return in Melbourne, he will undoubtably be somewhat rusty when returning to the driver's seat.
This will allow the 2022 driver's championship runner-up to potentially gain some ground on his more consistent teammate.
Leclerc said: "We had quite a lot of pace because we had the fastest lap at the end.
"I got a bit held back by the DRS, but overall the feeling was pretty good.
"It was a bit of a boring race because Red Bull were a bit too quick and behind we had a bit of a gap, but we took the maximum points we could today and that was the target, so that's great."
He also spoke about the performance of his debutant teammate, praising his talents given the short notice of his call-up.
"Oliver's done an incredible job already from FP3, and was straight on the pace in qualifying.
"He did a great job and missed Q3 by so little and I think today he's been incredible.
"I mean seventh in your first race in Formula 1, having done only in FP3 in a new car is just hugely impressive.
"So I'm sure he's extremely proud but everybody has noticed how talented he is and I guess it's just a matter of time before he comes here in Formula 1."
