Red Bull’s staggering superiority and the impact of a doubtful Safety Car call · RaceFans

Red Bull didn’t need the questionable deployment of the Safety Car 18 laps into the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to score a one-two finish – even with Max Verstappen starting a compromised 15th.

Questionable Safety Car settles race

Verstappen was already up to fourth place when Lance Stroll was urgently told by his Aston Martin team to pull to a stop. He could hardly have done a better job of locating an access road to pull his AMR23 into and on the face of it a Virtual Safety Car period might not have been necessary, yet race control made the surprising decision to send the Safety Car out.

An FIA spokesperson said the Safety Car was deployed as it was not immediately clear to them where Stroll had parked his car, and race control therefore chose the safest option. However it removed several key points of intrigue from the race.

It was a disaster for the likes of Ferrari, who had already pitted both drivers, and therefore lost more time compared to their rivals who were able to pit during the interruption. Recognising that Leclerc had as good as been passed by Verstappen at the time of his pit stop, that realistically cost each of their drivers a position.

Lewis Hamilton pounced on Carlos Sainz Jnr and passed him at the restart, though the Safety Car interruption wasn’t ideal for the Mercedes driver either. He was one of few drivers to start the race on hard tyres and was poised to benefit when the Safety Car appeared. Mercedes entertained the idea of leaving him out, but realised it would be futile.

Red Bull’s staggering performance

The scale of Red Bull’s superiority was apparent before the Safety Car period. Fernando Alonso grabbed the lead at the start but Sergio Perez went by with total ease once DRS was activated.

Alonso lasted five laps in Perez’s slipstream before losing pace and dropping back quickly. His pre-race assessment that Aston Martin could not challenge the Red Bulls was proved entirely correct, and after the restart he did not waste time trying to prevent Verstappen from overtaking him.

At this stage of the race, having traded medium compound tyres for hards, Red Bull’s pace advantage was enormous. Perez didn’t extend himself until Verstappen breezed by Alonso into second place at the half-distance points. From there both began to push.

The results made a grim spectacle for their rivals. The RB19s broke into the 1’32s and headed down to the 1’31s while everyone else was doing…