Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Review || F1 2023

00:00

Penalties, appeals and reliability issues… the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was full of it all. So, get ready because you’ve been summoned to the Steward’s Office

00:19

Hello everyone and welcome back to The Steward’s Office. I’m Saira and today I’m going to be talking about the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The drivers and teams headed out to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to race on the streets of Jeddah during the second round of the season. And I don’t even know where to start with this one, guys.

00:41

Saudi felt like a busy race weekend, there was a lot going on. And I can’t say that I’m really surprised by it. There's always been something going on either on track or off of it during Saudi and this year proved to be no different.

00:59

I’m gonna start on Wednesday which isn’t officially part of the race weekend but I swear, F1 is not built to give you any kind of peace, even when they aren’t racing. This time, Ferrari decided to ruin whatever inner peace I had before the weekend by coming out and saying that Charles was going to be facing a 10-place grid penalty this Sunday because they were going to have to replace his control electronics. It was gonna be the third time that this had happened this season which meant that he was going over his allowance.

01:36

And I know I was expecting this to happen. His DNF in Bahrain didn’t exactly inspire any hope in me for this season as a whole, to be fair, not just the coming races. But as much as I was expecting it to happen, I was still a little bit in shock. How are we only two races into the season and this man already had a grid penalty for exceeding the amount of parts allowed on his car? Two races, guys, that's all we are into the season and we're already seeing grid penalties.

02:10

I feel like, as a collective, we’re all just expecting this sort of thing to happen to Ferrari now and especially Charles. I swear, if he didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all. It was just beyond disappointing to hear the news, guys but like I said, I was expecting it.

02:31

The news of new parts didn’t end there though. Of course it didn't end there, as we went into Free Practice One on Friday. Checo was taking on a new gearbox, new energy store and a new control electronics, Lando and both of the Ferraris were taking on a new ICE, Lando and Charles were taking on a new MGU-H and there was also a new turbocharger for Lando. And Max also had a new gearbox in place for the weekend.

03:01

So, quite a few changes for only the second race of the season. Ferrari have said that they’ve only changed the ICEs as a precautionary measure but to me that sounds like they're still not entirely sure why Charles DNF’d in Bahrain and that’s also what the rumours are saying. It's just not comforting for any Ferrari fan. Any Carlos or Charles fan. It's just not great.

03:28

I genuinely don’t know how much longer it’s going to take for them to try and figure out what's wrong with the engine. And after that, how long it’s going to take them to fix it. Maybe it’s a good thing that there’s such a big gap between Australia and Baku, at least it gives them more of a chance to actually figure out what the problem is and get a fix in place. Even if it's just a band-aid for now.

03:52

Moving away from the cars for just a second, Friday also came with the news that after 7 years, Lewis and Angela were going to be parting ways. Angela’s been by Lewis’ side as his physiotherapist and just a solid part of his team and his inner circle. I don’t think it was an announcement that anyone was expecting to be made. I hadn't seen anything about it beforehand and to be honest with you guys, it gutted me a little. I’m used to seeing the two of them together when all the drivers are getting ready for the race or seeing her in the Merc garage during a race. So, it’ll be strange not seeing her around the team and with Lewis but I’m wishing her all the best for her future and whatever next steps that she's taking. And I’m sure she’s going to be on to some absolutely great things. And all of that was before we actually got any cars on track. I told you Saudi was a little bit of a busy one.

04:53

But what actually happened when the cars hit the track? To the surprise of absolutely no one at all, the Red Bulls seemed to dominate every practice session with no issues. Max hadn’t been in Jeddah for media rounds on Thursday since he was recovering from a stomach bug but there seemed to be no problem when he got into the car on Friday. They’re pulling away from the pack pretty easily let's be honest here and I know Max was saying last race that he didn’t think the gap would be as big in Saudi to the other teams as it was in Bahrain but I mean, come on. Who was actually believing that? I wasn't. I don;t think any of the other teams believed that either.

05:34

Ferrari on the other hand had some pretty quiet practice sessions. Nothing wild, nothing amazing but some decent laps and race pace. Just trying to get through their programmes and maybe just a little tentative with the new engines in the cars. I don’t know whether they didn’t want to push the engine too much when they knew they didn’t really need to or whether this is just something that they want to do this year, just to hold a little more back during practice and maybe turn the engines down during then and really unleash everything during quali and the race.

06:09

At the other end though, Alfa Romeo really seemed to be struggling during practice. The car had definitely looked stronger, to me, in Bahrain but in practice, they seemed to consistently be down the bottom half of the board. Things just weren’t falling into place with them but I feel like we’re going to get that with a lot of the midfield cars. Not a lot of them are completely suited for every track that is one the calendar and there are a lot of them. So, we get certain races where a team might do really well and then the next race they might fall down the pecking order a little bit. And with Saudi, it just seemed like it was Alfa Romeo's turn here.

06:49

much like we saw with Max in: 2021

07:20

Logan didn’t have the best quali session, he set a pretty decent time in Q1 right at the start but that got wiped out after going over track limits and after that, it didn’t get much better for him there. He had a lot of time to set a new lap because like I said, he set that first lap right at the beginning of the session. But he spun on his second push lap and if I'm honest with you I can’t believe that he didn’t hit a wall. It looked so so close to it. Especially with the smoke coming up. But thankfully, there was no damage that we could see to the car and he managed to get out for another push lap again right towards the end of the session. Only this time he ended up stopping on track and not even being able to set a representative time at all during qualification. It must have been such a gutting feeling for him especially and the Williams especially after what happened in Bahrain for him as well. The team and the car looked like it had some decent pace and Ithought he would have been able to get through from Q1 but luck was just not on Logan's side this weekend.

08:32

Lando was another driver that just did not have a whole load of luck on Saturday. He had a brush with the wall and it caused damage on the car that the engineers just weren’t able to fix during the time that was left in that Q1 session. He’s really not having a great time of it in quali over the last two races and I don’t know if that’s affected his morale in any way. I know a lot fo the drivers say no, you know, they're keeping their chin up and their head up and everything is fine. But it does have to get to you a little bit.

09:03

The McLaren really isn’t the fastest car on track right now and when you pair that with also having to start at the back of the grid, then Sunday is just going to end up a pretty hard day to get through.

09:17

Unlucky drivers also turned up in Q2 though and this time in the form of Max Verstappen. Now, I had predicted him to get pole in Saudi Arabia. The Red Bull was fastest in all three practice sessions so there was nothing really stopping them from doing it… except for reliability. Max ended up needing to limp back to the garage with a drive shaft issue that meant that he ended up in P15 and knocked out of Q2. Definitely not something that I had expected from Red Bull but reliability problems are the one thing we can’t really predict in this sport and the RBR garage really didn’t seem to happy about it either.

09:59

It wasn’t like it was all bad news for Red Bull though, Checo ended up getting pole for the second consecutive time at this track with Charles and Fernando behind him. The Astons were once again showing that they had pretty solid one lap pace. Carlos was a little unlucky in Q3 to be fair, he had to abort some quick laps because of traffic and pit lane exits. And honestly, I really don’t like the pitlane exit in Jeddah, especially when it comes to quali. The drivers coming out can’t really see who’s coming up and there’s no room to move out of the way if a car's coming up on fast lap and just zooming past. I just think it's a bit of a weird place to put it but it's not like they're going to change it any time soon. But yeah, i think that ruined some of the fast laps for him there.

10:54

Oh, also a quick shoutout to Oscar Piastri who managed to get into his first Q3 session. Genuinely was fairly impressed with that and he managed to get into P8 with his time so a pretty good showing from him. And I think it probably gave McLaren something to smile about.

11:13

Finally onto the race. Saudi has been absolute chaos before and I was kinda expecting the same this year. Some safety cars, red flags, everything we’ve usually seen when we come to this circuit. But… the race was actually pretty tame compared to usual. Thankfully, we didn’t get any big crashes or shunts like we have in the past but on track action felt pretty limited, especially at the front of the field. But that just seems to be the norm now. I don't even know why I bother complaining about it to you guys.

11:52

After Max’s quali issues though, RBR ended up changing his rear suspension, both of his drive shafts and then also decided to change back to the gearbox that he had used in Bahrain. And that was a little bit strange to me at first. I don’t know whether RBR were just trying to cover all their bases here or whether they just weren’t too sure of the problem but that was a lot to change just before the race. I did wonder whether the Saudi spec gearbox was a different spec to the Bahrain one and maybe it wasn’t performing as well as they expected it to but I’m pretty sure under parc ferme you get a penalty if you don’t replace like with like? If the spec changes a little bit you face a grid penalty. So, maybe there was just more wear after the issues Max had than what they were expecting after quali. Who knows? But yeah, like I said, a lot of changes. But I think Red Bull just wanted to make sure he was going to be able to get to the end of his race with minimum issues.

12:53

The first corner of the race was pretty calm, all of the drivers managed to get through it with little issue. No one trying to push people off track, no one really bumping into the side of another car. So, that was always good to see. But Oscar’s luck apparently could only last for quali because he had some contact with Pierre in that first lap and part of his front wing went flying. So, he had to come into the pits for a new one and went onto the hard tyres at the same time.

13:24

And he stayed on those tyres for the rest of the race! Didn’t even bother pitting again. So, I will say, that was extremely impressive tyre management from him and at least he did actually manage to finish a full race distance this time around. At this point, the McLaren isn’t winning any races let's be honest. The pace is so far off so I think the best thing for Oscar to do right now, is to just get as many laps in as he can and to learn as much as he can in these races.

13:55

McLaren then also needed to box Norris for a new front wing as well during lap 3 I think it was. And to be honest with you guys, at this point, there wasn’t really much of a race for either driver after those two pit stops. They ended up at the back of the grid and there was a time that the McLarens would have been able to battle through the grid and get into the points positions but it just wasn’t happening for them this race. They stayed right at the back really.

14:25

The pace for them this race just wasn't really there for them and I really don’t know where McLaren is right now. We didn't get a proper idea in Bahrain because Lando had engine issues he was running with and Oscar had to DNF. I can't tell whether it's something to do with the track? Is it the engine? Is it the car aerodynamics? I really can’t tell but the past two races have just been awful for them and I don’t know how they plan on fighting back because, for the second race in a row, they’re walking away with no points. They’re bottom of the constructors’ and they are one of two teams that have absolutely no points. Definitely some worrying times for McLaren fans and maybe some worrying time for the team right now.

15:14

Esteban managed to have a much, much quieter race this time around which I’m so glad about and probably wasn't the most difficult thing to achieve either, let's be honest. Alpine definitely just had a much better weekend in Saudi compared to Bahrain. Kind of performing where I would expect them to but I do think there’s the potential for more from both of the drivers and there's more to get from the car. Honestly, though at this point I'm just glad that we didn't see a million penalties for Esteban this race.

15:46

Instead, he ended up passing some of those on to Fernando. He ended up getting a 5s time penalty right at the start of the race for being out of position in his grid box which was the same issue that Esteban had in Bahrain that caused his first penalty. It’s so strange because this wasn’t really an issue that we had last year but we’ve had it come up twice in two races now. I can’t tell whether it’s just a coincidence or whether the FIA might have tightened up on some rules and might be clamping down on it a little bit more this year.

16:22

But yeah, Fernando ended up serving that penalty during a safety car pitstop which is completely allowed, no issue with that. What isn’t allowed though, is touching the car before those five seconds are served. And just like Esteban, the FIA found that the Aston Martin team had started working on the car before the penalty was served. And look, that’s fine if that’s what they found, right? It’s in breach of the rules so I get it. What I don’t quite understand is why it took over 30 laps, after everyone had crossed the finish line and trophies to be given out for the FIA to decide that was a penalty.

17:06

It definitely didn’t take them as long to decide with Este, that was a quick decision that they made. So I’m really not sure what happened there. But they applied a 10s post race penalty which gave Geroge a podium and I kid you not, just as I was about to record this episode, the documents and news came through that Aston Martin had appealed the decision. The FIA had 7 videos. 7 different videos that were showing them that the jack had touched the car too soon but somehow, and I don't know how, Aston had managed to argue that the alleged agreement between the FIA and the teams that touching the car in anyway, including the jack, meant that work was being done on the car was wrong. And they managed to argue well enough that the decision was overturned. Honestly, I’m impressed that Aston managed to get away with it after 7 videos worth of evidence.

18:10

I wanna be in the Steward's Office for that, guys. Like, I am the Steward's Office. Why am I not there? I want to see that decision being made. What was the flat-out argument? How did they present that argument to the Steward's? But yeah, kudos to them and probably the most impressive thing I heard/saw over the course of this weekend.

18:34

It was a bit of a game of hot potato with that trophy though and for the F1 media admin, to be like yeah, here's Alonso's podium. Nope, it's going to George. Actually, wait, we're giving it back to Alonso. But honestly, at least now Fernando has been able to celebrate getting his 100th career podium which is a massive achievement and congratulations to him for that.

18:58

The other Aston Martin probably had the worst time of it, to be honest. Lance ended up being told to stop on track and had his first DNF of the season. My heart just sank when I heard the radio message. I’m willing Lance to get a podium soon and he’d had an amazing start. He had an amazing move on Carlos, and then managed to keep him behind him. I just thought he did some really impressive work in the opening laps of the race. It looked like he needed to stop because of a brake issue but I’ve heard rumours of it being the exhaust or the ERS so I’m not entirely sure what’s going on there right now. I'm hoping that it’s not going to take a lot to sort out for the next race but between a DNF and Fernando’s penalty, then not penalty, I don’t think Aston were riding on the same high that they were in Bahrain.

20:00

But they’ve still got a lot of positives to take from the race. I mean, the pace on both of the cars was so good and I think this is really solidifying their place this season now and where they are and where the team in heading. And look, they're not really up to scratch to compete with the Red Bulls right now, not for a few laps at the very least but I think Ferrari and Mercedes and definitely going to struggle with Aston being there now. I think that's going to end up being their main competition.

20:33

Lance wasn’t the only DNF of this race though, Alex ended up having to retire from the race after bringing his car back to the garage. He said on the radio his brakes weren’t working properly and after trying to do one more lap to see if it was something that the pit wall might be able to resolve, or if it was a problem that could resolve itself, he ended up DNFing. Another gutting one because Williams were not having a bad weekend but this is just highlighting the reliability issues across nearly all of the teams and it’s a little concerning to me.

21:09

We’re two races in and seeing engine issues, issues with brakes, issues with drive shafts. And I know at the start of the season, things like this do happen. The teams are just trying and iron out problems with the new cars that they've built but the engine issues I think are the most concerning right now. We haven’t had a big reg change on them. If anything, the regs on the engines have been frozen, so I really don’t know how the engines are going to survive for the rest of the season if this is what’s happening in the second race. I have a feeling this is going to be a season where we see a lot of grid penalties across all the teams just for exceeding the number of parts allowed across all the different parts, not just the engine. But anything that you can replace. Because right now, reliability is not looking good across the grid.

22:10

Ugh, guys, I don’t even know what to say about Ferrari at this point. I’m really surprised by their race pace… and not in a good way. Charles had a pretty good start when he was on the Soft tyres and didn’t have a load of issues cutting his way through the field but Carlos did lose some places at the start of the race and then really struggled to make them up again.

22:34

That second stint on the Hard tyres for both of the drivers though… where the heck had the pace gone? I was not expecting them to end up behind both of the Mercedes. Their predicted race pace from the practice session hadn’t put them behind Merc and but that just didn’t seem to materialise during the race at all. Charles just seemed disheartened after the race, Frederic Vasseur’s admitted that this was not a good race for them. I’m not sure that even they know the direction that they need to take to improve the car at this point but it’s just not looking good. The drivers and the team definitely need a better race in Australia because they’re trailing behind Aston and Mercedes and I would have expected them to be ahead of at least one of those teams at this point.

23:27

Team radios were… interesting for this race mainly between RBR and Ferrari. We heard a message between Charles and his engineer Xavi during the safety car after Lewis had pitted. Lewis was basically sandwiched between the Ferraris with Charles behind him. And Xavi had given some information to Charles to try and help him overtake Lewis at the restart or at least try and get an attack on him but the information was way too late for Charles to do what Xavi had said. And you could just tell how fed up Charles was at this point. The communication between him and his race engineer has not been great and for me, that’s a little bit of a concern. Xavi seems to just be letting things slip and giving information a little too late for Charles and it does end up having an impact on the race, on quali and certain things in practice if he ends up impeding. Fo the life of me, I could not tell you what the delay is, what is going on. Whether Xavi's just not switched on. Whether he's not paying attention. Whether the information is just coming too late. I really do not know what is going on. But it;s just getting exhausting at this point.

24:47

And finally, what was probably the most interesting radio message came at the end of the race with Check. He was basically told that he could slow down a little, he was leading the race, and had a nice comfortable gap with Max. Easy RBR 1-2 and you would think yeah, there’s not really a reason to keep pushing the car, especially with the issues that Max had in quali. Let's not push it. And Sergio was fine with that because he thought that the same info was being relayed to Max. So, Max would be slowing down and when he asked the team about it. Asked about Max's lap time. He found out that Max would end up doing quicker lap times if Sergio slowed down. And understandably, he was not happy about it.

25:39

A race win is great but he was getting a race win after getting pole and then a fastest lap would just be the cherry on top of the cake. And it does also mean an extra point in the championship. And it goes down to the wire sometimes, you need to get every point that you can get. And this point in particular would have made him the championship leader after this race.

26:02

In the end, RBR did let him push but Max ended up with the fastest lap point anyway. But I think it was just the principle of being allowed to try and get that lap.

26:14

Other than that though, it was a bit of a bad day for Yuki and Valterri. Yuki was on the cusp of a points finish but an overtake from Kevin meant that he lost that and Valterri ended up with some damage on his car and finished last of all the cars that crossed the line. So, not the greatest race of either of them but hopefully Australia will show some improvements.

26:41

Especially for Yuki and AlphaTauri in general who have yet to score a point this season. They’re in a battle for the bottom of the table with McLaren right now and if I was going to guess who was more likely to stay there based on history… I mean I would say the AlphaTauri but at least they’re within touching distance of the points…

27:01

Let’s be honest though guys, second race in and I’m still a little bored. Where are the good battles? Where’s the excitement? When are we going to get racing cars… racing. Next up is Australia and maybe that might provide some better racing. I’m not holding my breath at this point guys. I’m expecting Red Bull to run away with the lead but when I look at the time difference that Ferrari had with Aston and Mercedes this weekend… yeah it’s not great and I’m hoping that it’s a one-off of this track for them… but people had said this would be one of their strongest tracks…honestly at this point who knows.

27:51

don't know. But at this point: 2023

28:28

And finally before I sign off on this podcast, the top three on my power rankings are Fernando, Sergio and Charles! Check out my tiktok stewards_office to see the full list! I use a spreadsheet basically and I'm tinkering with it at the moment to find out where the driver would place in my version of a power ranking.

28:48

Thank you, guys, so much for listening make sure to subscribe to this podcast and give it a five star review! Next week I’m going to be catching you guys up on all the news and rumours that had been floating around the paddock. So, I'll see you guys the next time you're summoned to the Steward's Office.