Ferrari pick up the pace too late to stop Red Bull running away again

Red Bull romped to another one-two in Jeddah as Charles Leclerc didn’t have the pace to keep up with them.

But the Ferrari driver took some encouragement from the pace of his car towards the end of his stints. Leclerc found it difficult to get his tyres working to begin with, but his pace improved once they came up to temperature.

But the crucial question remains how far the Red Bull drivers were pushing by that stage in the race.

Leclerc had to fight a rear-guard action to prevent Sergio Perez nabbing second place off him on the first lap. Even then he was only able to contain the second Red Bull for three laps, until Perez flipped open his DRS and breezed by into second place.

The Ferrari driver was still losing up to half a second to the leading RB20s on his original set of medium tyres when the Safety Car appeared on lap seven and the trio pitted together. From there they ran on hard tyres until the end.

Leclerc dropped back significantly from Verstappen at this time, and took many more laps to pass Lando Norris in the McLaren. But by the end of the race he was lapping quicker than both Red Bulls.

“We were struggling all the time at the beginning of the stints, whether it was at the beginning of the medium or beginning on the hards, we struggled to switch the tyres on,” he explained. “Then towards the end of the stint we were pretty good.

“With the medium, we didn’t really see that. With the hard, we saw that towards the end, but it was too late to actually recover what we had lost at the beginning with the battles we had.”

Leclerc’s pace was strong enough that he was able to beat Verstappen to the fastest lap of the race. They both set their quickest times on the final lap of the race, but only Leclerc beat the time Lewis Hamilton set on a set of soft tyres a dozen laps earlier.

“All in all, it’s been a positive race,” Leclerc summarised. “I think we are doing small steps in the right direction.

“If I look back the last six, seven months, we are the team that have improved the most and we are slowly closing the gap. So the gap is still quite big. But if we keep working like that, I’m sure it’s a matter of time before we put the Red Bull under a bit more pressure.”

However Verstappen’s performance in the final laps was compromised by traffic – he had to lap the cluster of cars which Kevin Magnussen purposefully held up earlier in the race. This made it harder to keep his tyres warm, hurting his lap times.

“With the back markers at the end the tyres were getting a bit cold and it was a bit slippery getting close to them,” he said. “And of course then also you don’t want to take too much risk. We had a good gap behind. So that was probably a little bit of a difficult moment to pace yourself.”

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2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix lap chart

Nico Hulkenberg gained the most places of any driver in the race, thanks to his team mate. He picked up five places and, with it, the final point.

RB were especially unhappy with Haas’ tactics, which contributed to Yuki Tsunoda losing more positions than any other driver. Having qualified ninth he fell back six places to 15th – where Hulkenberg started.

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix race chart

Haas’ decision to slow Magnussen was driven not simply by their race position, but the discovery he had two 10-second time penalties which effectively ended his chance of scoring points. His pace slowed dramatically from lap 22 as he backed up Tsunoda and his pursuers:

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix lap times

Between laps 21 and 34, Magnussen increased his pace by around one second per lap, delaying those behind him by roughly 12 seconds:

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

Rank	#	Driver	Car	Lap time	Gap	Avg. speed (kph)	Lap no.
1	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’31.632		242.6	50
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’31.746	0.114	242.3	38
3	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’31.773	0.141	242.23	50
4	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’31.944	0.312	241.78	40
5	38	Oliver Bearman	Ferrari	1’32.186	0.554	241.14	50
6	24	Zhou Guanyu	Sauber-Ferrari	1’32.208	0.576	241.09	49
7	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’32.254	0.622	240.97	42
8	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull-Honda RBPT	1’32.273	0.641	240.92	37
9	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’32.307	0.675	240.83	50
10	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren-Mercedes	1’32.310	0.678	240.82	45
11	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’32.338	0.706	240.75	47
12	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas-Ferrari	1’32.366	0.734	240.67	49
13	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’32.387	0.755	240.62	43
14	77	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber-Ferrari	1’32.706	1.074	239.79	49
15	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams-Mercedes	1’33.026	1.394	238.97	49
16	3	Daniel Ricciardo	RB-Honda RBPT	1’33.323	1.691	238.2	47
17	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’33.481	1.849	237.8	48
18	22	Yuki Tsunoda	RB-Honda RBPT	1’33.523	1.891	237.7	44
19	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’35.560	3.928	232.63	5
20	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine-Renault	2’01.453	29.821	183.03	1

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2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix tyre strategies

Almost every driver pitted when the Safety Car appeared on lap seven. Those who didn’t mostly chose to finish the race using a set of soft tyres instead of the preferred hards. The only exception was Hulkenberg, who had the luxury of his team mate holding up their pursuers.

The tyre strategies for each driver:

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2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

Rank	#	Driver	Team	Complete stop time (s)	Gap to best (s)	Stop no.	Lap no.
1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	20.17		1	36
2	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	20.607	0.437	1	7
3	63	George Russell	Mercedes	21.013	0.843	1	7
4	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Haas	21.035	0.865	1	33
5	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	21.427	1.257	1	7
6	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	21.46	1.29	1	7
7	22	Yuki Tsunoda	RB	21.694	1.524	1	7
8	23	Alexander Albon	Williams	21.723	1.553	1	7
9	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	22.129	1.959	1	7
10	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	22.196	2.026	1	7
11	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	22.211	2.041	1	37
12	38	Oliver Bearman	Ferrari	22.457	2.287	1	7
13	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine	22.502	2.332	1	7
14	77	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber	22.795	2.625	1	7
15	77	Valtteri Bottas	Sauber	23.281	3.111	2	35
16	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	23.419	3.249	1	7
17	2	Logan Sargeant	Williams	23.645	3.475	1	7
18	24	Zhou Guanyu	Sauber	46.381	26.211	1	41

2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

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