Sergio Perez drove to victory in Formula One’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, having to overtake a fast-starting Fernando Alonso and hold off Max Verstappen’s attack for his first win of 2023.
Perez crossed the line 5.3 seconds ahead of Verstappen, who spent the final laps recharging his battery for a final fastest lap lap, ultimately succeeding as he crossed the line with a 1:31.906 lap.
Perez suffered a setback at the start that saw Alonso seep into the first corner to take the lead and settle into first place.
But Alonso was immediately pinged for starting from the wrong position and a quick investigation resulted in the Spaniard receiving a five-second penalty for going too far to the left in his starting pit.
Although his advantage over Perez was briefly more than a second, Alonso was being chased by Perez at the end of lap three and with DRS the Mexican was able to pull inside and regain the lead early in lap four.
Alonso stayed with him in the DRS range and although he never made an attack to retake the lead, he was able to slipstream from Perez for a few laps until he was simply unable to get to the Red Bull within a second to approach
From there, the Aston Martin driver eased off, quickly falling to 1.6 seconds behind the Guadalajara-born driver by lap 11, a gap that doubled two laps later.
But the race was halted on lap 17 when Lance Stroll – who had previously sensationally passed Carlos Sainz at Turn 13 on the first lap – stalled and parked at Turn 8. This eventually resulted in a safety car, resulting in a series of pit stops among the front runners as they traded in their middle tires for the hardest compound.
Verstappen was brought level after the safety car restart after pitting with the early lead field and was initially told to prioritize his tires until DRS was activated on lap 23.
This gave him the tools to get past George Russell with DRS at Turn 27 and the Dutchman was subsequently able to catch Alonso to finish in the top two.
Next on the agenda was Verstappen to close the 5.4 second gap on Perez and he was able to squeeze out about a tenth per lap and bring it down to five seconds by the 30th tour of the circuit when Perez attempted to close the to reduce damage.
The polesitter managed to restore his buffer to around 5.2s on the following lap as he and Verstappen continued to battle for fastest laps. Although Verstappen was largely congruent in time, he was able to continually take away from Perez’s lead.
As the gap dropped below 4.5s, Verstappen began to worry when he felt the drive shaft making strange noises at high speed, restoring Perez’s gap to 5.2s as Red Bull investigated his complaints.
But satisfied enough, Red Bull told Verstappen to go ahead – and meanwhile Perez reported a long brake pedal as the team tried to finish the race. After the two were reassured about their troubles, Verstappen closed the gap back to 4.3s as radio chatter between the Red Bull drivers and engineers began.
Perez tried to get his team to slow things down while Verstappen kept pushing but when Perez said it was an open season he opened the taps and started to gain an advantage over his teammate who was able to hang in the low 1:32.
With three laps to go, Perez’s lead grew to six seconds as Verstappen was more concerned about the fastest lap instead, and the lead grew in Perez’s favor to 7.1 seconds from the final lap.
Verstappen then matched his 1m31.906s to take the fastest lap point away from his teammate, closing the gap to just over five seconds to eventually follow his teammate home as Perez claimed his first win since Singapore last season .
Alonso completed the top three after serving his five-second penalty during the safety car period prior to his pit stop to stay ahead of pursuers Mercedes and Ferrari.
Russell was told on the radio to hold Alonso within five seconds just to cover the risk of further penalties, but a powerful final lap from the 2005 and 2006 World Champion left the Brit outside that margin and the FIA immediately placed him under investigation failure to serve the sentence.
Alonso had initially completed the top three after serving his five-second penalty during the safety car period before his pit stop to stay ahead of pursuers Mercedes and Ferrari.
Russell was told over the radio to hold Alonso within five seconds just to cover the threat of further penalties, but a powerful final lap from the 2005 and 2006 World Champion left the Brit outside that lead – and the FIA put him up straight away is being investigated for incorrectly serving the penalty for doing it outside of normal racing speeds.
That gave Alonso a 10-second penalty, putting him in fourth place and Russell in third.
Lewis Hamilton ensured both Mercedes made the top five after opting for a counter-strategy, starting on hard pavement and completing a 32-lap stint on the middle compound.
This ensured he could finish ahead of Carlos Sainz, who had previously used his pit stop to pass Stroll after being the object of his ample pass around the outside at Turn 13.
Sainz stayed ahead of Charles Leclerc, who struggled through the order after starting from 12th through a 10-place penalty, and the Monegasque was able to work his way up to seventh place.
Esteban Ocon won the Battle of the Alps and finished eighth, while Pierre Gasly repeated his result from Bahrain in ninth.
Haas came in the black for the season as Kevin Magnussen completed the top 10 after battling with Yuki Tsunoda for the last point in the second half of the race.
The Dane gave the AlphaTauri driver a nudge early on lap 46, denying the Italian team a chance to score their first point of 2023.