Image via Sky Sports
In the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen won one-two finishes by holding off their rivals.
Verstappen battled his way up the grid from position 15 to position 4 until a safety car slowed down the race and put him in the driver’s seat.
Verstappen was able to overtake George Russell of Mercedes and Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, but was unable to overtake Perez and was forced to settle for second place.
Following the overturning of a post-race penalty, Alonso was reinstituted in third.
The Spaniard dropped from first to fourth after receiving a 10-second time penalty for failing to serve a five-second earlier time penalty for failing to start in his grid spot at the beginning of the race.
He served the penalty during his pit stop, but it was determined that the crew had violated the rules by touching the car before the allotted five seconds had passed. As a result, Russell moved up to third and he received a 10-second penalty instead.
However, Alonso’s team successfully argued that there had been prior instances of drivers not being penalized in such situations, and the stewards eventually overturned their first decision.
Following the restart after the safety car, Lewis Hamilton briefly challenged Russell for fifth place, passing the Ferraris driven by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
That was Red Bull’s second consecutive one-two at the beginning of a season in which they have already made a strong first impression that will be difficult to overcome.