By Aljohara Zarea
JEDDAH — Mexican Sergio Perez deservedly snatched the 2023 Formula1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix title after a thrilling duel with his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen on Sunday, at the Jeddah Corniche circuit.
In the much-anticipated race, Perez won the race over Verstappen, who was 5.3 seconds behind him. Verstappen showed real grit as he steered his car from the 15th place in the starting grid to nearly pull off a victory.
Perez set the pace from the pole spot, and showed tremendous acumen to hold off a charging Verstappen to win the Gran Prix race in style. Perez set the pace in qualifying session after achieving the best lap with a time of 1 minute, 28.265 seconds.
In 3rd place came Spaniard Fernando Alonso, driver of the Aston Martin team, just 20.7 seconds behind Verstappen. Alonso was in the fray for most of the race, but was reeled in late in Verstappen to drop to third from second berth.
According to F1, Alonso fell off the podium places and promoted Mercedes' George Russell to P3, after he handed a five-second penalty for lining up outside his grid slot, then also handed a further 10-second penalty for not serving the first penalty correctly.
But the FIA has retracted its decision and returned Alonso to third place.
The early battle was in earnest between Perez and Alonso in the race's 20 laps with the top two blazing a hot trail.
Lower down, Hamilton and Verstappen at 8 and 9 were waging their own battle lower down, till Verstappen broke free to catch up with the leaders, and relegating Hamilton to the 5th place.
Ferrari driver Leclerc, who received a 10-place grid penalty during the qualifying session causing him to start from the 12th place in the grid, too showed grit and finesse to stay in the hunt, but the task was too hard for him as he finished in 7th place.
It is worth mentioning that the 2023 Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix started on March 17-18-19, which was held for the third time in a row in Saudi Arabia.
The Red Bull team was at the forefront of the winning teams in Saudi Arabia. In 2021, Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes won the title, while in 2022 Max Verstappen of Red Bull team took the title. And now his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez added another title for the Red Bull team.
The race was held in the presence of the Minister of Sports Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki, Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, president of the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation (SAMF), and many officials.
