Without a doubt, the second race of the year, the 1,080th (1080) in absolute terms, held on Sunday, March 19, 2023 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, confirmed the absolute dominance of Red Bull. Pérez finished first and Verstappen second, who started from 15th position and his teammate from 1st. In Saturday’s qualifying, the car of the champion of the Netherlands suffered a mechanical failure due to a problem with the cardan shaft. The memory of the incident played a minor role in delaying his intention to pursue Pérez after Sunday’s race resumed on lap 20 of 50 when damage to Stroll’s car forced the race director to order the safety car to be called due to the infamous GPS (Global positioning system) unreliability, which showed that the Canadian rider was inside the track, while he took his car off it in time. The failure of one of the two Aston Martins justifies the inclusion of the race in the VSC (Virtual Safety Car), a condition that forces participants to slow down by 40%. In this case, the corresponding pit stop duration is actually reduced by this quota. All teams from the top ten won, with the exception of Ferrari, which changed tires on both cars a lap before. In addition, a misunderstanding with the pit wall took Leclerc by surprise, and he inadvertently gave way to Hamilton. Also, the appearance of the safety car contributed to the approach of Verstappen to the leaders. After the safety car pulled out and the cars gained full speed for two laps, Hamilton overtook Saint and Verstappen overtook Russell for second, forming an unbroken line for the remainder of the race. For more than half of the race, nine out of ten ranked riders did not overtake. Forty-five minutes of light sleep and rest for spectators, commentators and engineers? Fortunately, for the sake of interest, in the form of gossip or quasi-conflict, the logically contradictory pursuits of two Red Bull teammates kept the Austrian team’s racing mechanics on their toes, at least.

Hugh Bird is the British racing engineer of Sergio Perez. After graduating from the University of Cambridge, he began his career in motorsport in 2012 as a simulation and analysis engineer for Red Bull Racing and then worked as a performance simulation engineer from 2015 to 2017. a period in which the Dutchman scored seven victories and finished on the podium several times. He was named Senior Race Engineer to Sergio Pérez for the 2021 Formula One World Championship, leading the Mexican to victory and fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship.

Gianpiero Lambiase, also known as GP, is Max Verstappen’s Italian-British racing engineer. He began his F1 career in 2005 with Jordan and worked with the Silverstone team under various guises for 10 years. In 2008 he worked as a performance engineer for Giancarlo Fisichella, helping the Italian reach his first pole position and podium in Force India in Belgium in 2009. took over the same position of Paul di Resta, which he held for three years until he was replaced by Sergio Pérez in 2014. He worked with him for a year when he moved to Red Bull, mentoring Daniel Kvyat for a year and shortly after Verstappen. . It is known for its extremely direct and accurate wireless communications, which Verstappen often praised. In 2022, Labiase took over as head of race engineering, retaining his role as race engineer for Verstappen.

It can be seen from their biographies that the Dutch coach is clearly more experienced, with a more important and difficult position in the Austrian team. An old acquaintance of Perez from Force India, who has been Aston Martin since last year, from there and after the end of the race, the Mexican shared the joy of first place with his longtime comrades in the green team. This is another testament to the outstanding position of Verstappen in the team. In fact, everyone and everything revolves around him, which is perhaps not unfair when measured by his driving ability. However, he often behaves like a spoiled only child, tempted by the total surrender of the group members to him, with the main spokesman and supporter of undivided discrimination in the person of his “spiritual” father Helmut Marko and a close friend, the initiator and founder of the Austrian group Dietrich “Didi” Mateschik, an inhabitant of the invisible world from October 22, 2022. The Red Bull team included Matesic, Marko, Horner and Newey, with the latter being arguably the most important aerodynamic designer of all time in Formula 1. In a way they are unfair to themselves and with their attitude they focus the Dutchman’s contribution to the team in one dimension, limiting his generosity. At last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, Pérez was denied second place in a vengeful gesture, the result of perverse competition instilled in him by his biological father and reinforced by the rest of the team, with the possible exception of Adrian Newey. who seems to hate the strutting behavior. Verstappen is not just competitive, he has to look competitive in a blatant public display of such a trait. Otherwise, the comments about the special sounds he hears, obviously secondary, are not explained, especially when he is confidently leading the race. He did the same yesterday. So much so that English commentators on TVF1’s international pay-TV segment, which covers the matches, ridiculed the subtleties of hearing, accusing him of supernatural hearing abilities when he commented on the sounds he heard in the back seat of his car. The sounds came when he was in second place and for a while he thought he could catch up to Perez, which turned out to be impossible because the Mexican can be slower than him, but not as slow with this wonderful RB19 built by Newey, who Multiple world champion Lewis Hamilton is the fastest car he has ever seen in his career, according to eight. The two racing mechanics exchanged instructions and minutiae with their racers about the pace they needed to set in order to get the cars to the finish line and avoid any potential failures or breakdowns. But it all sounded more like Verstappen’s antics and Perez’s insecurities than actual threats. As a result, the two-time world champion, despite on-board sound warnings, showed the fastest lap, rightfully taking one point and leadership in the championship from his teammate. The icing on the cake of his achievement was that he did not enter the clear space of the first three finishers, but instead parked with the rest of the riders, thus avoiding standing on the side and behind Perez’s car.

Alonso finished third, but after a penalty for a wrong penalty, Russell moved up to third. However, following an appeal by Aston Martin, it was confirmed that he was back in third place, which is also his overall position after two races. Mercedes, which boss Toto Wolff says must redesign the car if it wants to claim the championship – next year, of course – is tied for second place with Aston Martin. Unfortunately, it seems that Leclerc, especially popular with the audience, will suffer from childhood illnesses of an Italian team that refuses to grow up for another year.