Max Verstappen also wins in Saudi Arabia, but the spotlight is all on Oliver Bearman’s Formula 1 debut.
A flash of news this weekend comes from the debut of Oliver Bearman, the youngest ever to debut in a Ferrari, at just 18 years and 10 months. And debuting in Formula 1 driving a Ferrari is a privilege that not many can say they have had. Due to an appendicitis problem Sainz is forced to sit out and on Friday morning Bearman is called in to replace him. After just one free practice session he even came close to reaching Q3 and qualified eleventh. The goal, even a little ambitious, was to get to the points and try to fight with the McLarens, but he wanted to impress.
Today Bearman demonstrated that he has the attributes, despite his young age, and the desire and hunger of someone who cannot be satisfied. He finishes seventh, exhausted by the fatigue of a circuit with many high-speed corners, but above all he takes the satisfaction of finishing ahead of Norris and a 7-time world champion like Hamilton. The old Lewis had a sensational race, literally driving Piastri crazy behind him, who tried in every way to overtake him; the Englishman, despite the greater degradation of his tire, took him to school, also thanks to the difficulty of a McLaren which struggles a lot on the straight; in the end Piastri held onto his fourth place.
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Quite a lonely race for Leclerc, who doesn’t have the pace to keep up with Verstappen’s pace, but not even that of Perez: a slightly more powerful wing than the others was in fact not enough to be able to aspire to compete with the two Red Bulls. Despite this, the little horse confirms itself as the second strength of this world championship and compared to what we saw in Bahrain, the feeling is that Ferrari can concentrate more on how to catch up with those in front rather than thinking about defending itself from those in pursuit.
Finally a convincing race arrives for Perez tooafter last year he experienced a very complicated second part of the season (from which he had never recovered) and there were also speculations regarding his possible departure from the Red Bull team. Czech he appears very aggressive right from the start on Leclerc who manages to defend himself with a half-miracle, but on the fourth lap the Mexican uses the DRS to take the position and closes a race with a certain gap from his teammate, but overall without taking great risks .
Yet another victory for Red Bull which confirms its clear superiority and extinguishes the hopes that there will be a competition with last year’s champions, at least for this first part of the season. Verstappen was not distracted by the thousand rumors that have circulated in recent days, especially by the controversy surrounding Helmut Marko’s statements, just when the fuss around the Horner case seemed to have died down. Thinking about it, the only thing that could actually put an end to this domination is a fratricidal war, but as long as there is a Max like this, who when he puts on his helmet and gets into the car he forgets about everything around him, seeing a race with the others will be really tough.
2024-03-09 20:02:19
#Formula #Saudi #Arabia
