How Verstappen learned to combat Leclerc’s detection zone tactics in Saudi thriller

Three spikes of oversteer went a long way to deciding the captivating contest in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

A sign that the rear tyres on Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari were beginning to cry mercy, the back end of his F1-75 squirmed out of line just a little when he turned into the final corner five laps from home. Then the rubber broke traction again, this time as the power was applied the other side of the apex. One tour later, the back axle tried to overtake the front once more as he entered Turn 27.

Those brief moments of waywardness left Leclerc prey to Max Verstappen, who by now had spent the better part of two races observing and understanding what it takes to overcome his composed and calculated rival in wheel-to-wheel combat. The Red Bull driver then pounced for what would become the first victory of his title defence.

That was the climax to the thrilling show Formula 1 delivered on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit as DRS and the new 18-inch Pirellis, rather than the shift to ground-effect, produced a frenetic race with passing aplenty. But it was a grand prix that might not have happened at all.

Drivers vacillated for more than four hours as Friday night rolled into Saturday morning. They each took turns to voice their concerns and consider a boycott in deference to the Houthi missile strike on a nearby Aramco oil facility.

Saudi and independent security officials pressed home that the venue was indeed safe after what many considered to be a statement attack from the Yemeni rebels rather than a direct threat to life. Series bosses, team principals and the drivers were assured they would be protected by the anti-missile defence system (a quite incredible point to consider in the context of a motor race), the range of which didn’t span to the targeted petrol plant.

The event was placed into doubt on Friday following a missile attack on a nearby oil plant, which prompted a lengthy meeting involving drivers, teams and organisers

Photo by: Carl Bingham / Motorsport Images

With the second running of the country’s GP eventually set to go ahead as part of an original 10-year and £500million deal between F1 and Saudi, Sergio Perez notched his first series pole position. At the 217th time of asking (it was his 215th race start, but he had qualified for the 2011 Monaco and 2014 Malaysian grands prix that he didn't start), he flashed to the top of the timing screens aboard his RB18 and perfectly satisfied the criteria of his tacit number two driver status by beating the Ferrari duo when Verstappen dropped the ball on his final Q3 lap to only snare fourth.

In the race, Perez and his team-mate enjoyed the better launches. The Mexican held the middle of the road into Turn 1 to ensure second-starting Leclerc stayed in his place. That forced the lead car from the second row of the grid, Carlos Sainz Jr, to check his speed into the left-hander to miss his stablemate. As the circuit snaked back on itself for Turn 2, Verstappen was presented with a window of opportunity to tip-toe his car around the outside of Sainz for third.

While Perez escaped to a controlled lead that peaked above two seconds in the opening five laps, Verstappen was struggling to excite his set of fresh C3 medium tyres into their optimum window and mount a charge after Bahrain GP victor Leclerc.

“I didn't really feel that happy on the medium,” said the reigning world champion. “All the time when you would get close to the car ahead, the tyres would die. So, there was not much racing going on. It was a little bit frustrating to just sit there and wait for the right lap to pit so you could go onto the other tyres, because as soon as we went on to the hard tyre, I had a much better feeling.”

"If I would have got passed by Russell for example, what would we have done and would Checo have had to let by Russell and me? That would have been tremendously unfair" Carlos Sainz Jr

Two-time race winner Perez was happier on the yellow-walled rubber, which he stretched to lap 15 as Leclerc began to increase the pace to bring the gap down to 1.6s. Ferrari then called its driver into the pits with the instruction “box to overtake” before reversing its decision. However, the Red Bull strategists had already responded by putting their driver on the undercut. Perez was called into the pits for his one stop and a switch to fresh hard tyres – the same plan executed by the eventual top eight finishers.

The plan ultimately failed for a cocktail of reasons. The tyre change itself was without obvious error but at 2.9s, a few tenths were lost. Perez then rejoined the track behind the Mercedes of George Russell, which had been running in fifth place, and owing to the cooler tyre blanket regulations in 2022, Perez needed time to get some temperature in the rubber. But what decisively consigned Perez to a lost win was the yellow flag that came out just as he cleared the first sector.

It was waved on account of Nicholas Latifi shunting out of the race, having also binned the Williams in Q1. The Canadian ended a torrid weekend when he leaned on the right pedal too hard and too soon at Turn 27. He overcorrected the slide to put himself on a collision course with the outside wall. Despite locking all four corners as he jumped on the brakes, the FW44 pinged into the concrete.

Latifi's shunt one lap after Perez pitted from the lead dropped him to fourth and thrust Leclerc into the lead

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

The flags morphed into a virtual then full safety car and, under neutralised conditions, nine drivers hit the pits. Leclerc, Verstappen and Sainz made the most of the cheaper stops to leapfrog Perez. The Monegasque emerged in the lead, while Verstappen narrowly escaped his pitbox without contact as Sainz arrived at his.

Sainz then had a run in with the next Red Bull. Perez, delayed behind Russell, had nipped past and at the safety car line, which Sainz narrowly reached first, squeezed the rejoining Ferrari against the Turn 2 perimeter. Despite the suspect move, there was no call for Perez to duck back behind the Spaniard until green-flag conditions returned after five laps.

Sainz reckoned that decision was “very strange”: “As a sport, we need to keep analysing these things because we could simplify things so much more if Checo would have just given me the position during the safety car, which basically would have given me an opportunity to fight Max at the restart and would have given Checo an opportunity to fight me.

“We created a mess that for me is unnecessary… there were millions of opportunities for Checo to let me by and have a good fight at the restart. If I would have got passed by Russell for example, what would we have done and would Checo have had to let by Russell and me? That would have been tremendously unfair.”

When the safety car peeled in at the end of lap 20, it wouldn’t be the last time in the race that events mimicked proceedings from Bahrain the previous weekend. For Verstappen tried to intimidate Leclerc at the restart by placing his car alongside only for his line to be compromised out of the final corner. The Ferrari squeezed him tight and sprinted away to an early advantage by sweeping across the asphalt to break the tow.

The Ferrari had a narrow 1.6s lead come lap 37 before a second virtual safety car was called into play. This time it was to account for the tandem retirements of Fernando Alonso (sudden power loss while battling with Kevin Magnussen for what might have been an eventual seventh), Daniel Ricciardo (occupying 11th when the driveline shutdown shortly after team orders to let Lando Norris by) and Valtteri Bottas (15th, overheating).

On lap 41, 10 tours from the chequered flag, the race restarted for the final time and gave the best indication yet of the contrast between how the RB18 and F1-75 generate pace. Verstappen was conceding tenths to Leclerc in the more twisty first sector as the Ferrari efficiently sliced through the medium-speed corners. That corresponded with team principal Mattia Binotto confirming the Scuderia had opted for a higher downforce set-up on Sunday to hopefully mitigate tyre degradation, which ultimately turned out to be less than the Maranello concern had anticipated.

Exaggerated DRS effect meant Leclerc struggled to keep Verstappen at bay down the long straights

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Red Bull chose to run its car in a more slippery state of tune, Verstappen using the rebadged Honda engine to smash through the speed trap some 1.4mph faster than anyone else in the race. Just as Perez had more than recovered the 0.3s he dropped through the opener corners in Q3 to claim pole, Verstappen used the power unit’s grunt on F1’s fastest street track to tear chunks out of Leclerc.

The gap fell from 1.6s to four tenths but, even then, Verstappen couldn’t be assured of defeating Leclerc. That was on account of the example set in Bahrain prior to both Red Bulls retiring with a fuel vacuum issue. At Sakhir, Leclerc had found the spare brain capacity to work out where to ideally cede track position to Verstappen. He settled on falling into second place just before the DRS detection line over the course of three laps to immediately gain the overtaking aid and then repass for the lead and seal the eventual spoils.

It had worked seven days prior and, initially, Verstappen didn’t appear wise to Leclerc repeating his trick. The faster Red Bull gained a powerful tow with DRS down the back straight and at the first opportunity, pounced for position into Turn 27 on lap 42. But the Ferrari was happy to give up the inside of the track and lose the place, having crossed the next DRS line behind to gain the overtaking aid down the main straight. Leclerc put on a show for his mechanics as he edged back into first while parallel with the Ferrari pitwall perch.

Lap 45 was a perfect snapshot of the battle: Leclerc bolted to the fastest first sector of the race, Verstappen responded with a blistering second sector. And then to complete the lap, two of the three bouts of Leclerc’s critical oversteer arrived at Turn 27 to cost back-to-back victories

Then in its comfort zone, the F1-75 devoured the first sector to scamper into a 1s cushion. As the pair crossed over into the second half of the lap, however, it was then advantage RB18.

By now, Verstappen had caught on to Leclerc’s strategy and wasn’t going to be toyed with for the fifth time in two races. Despite the overspeed and the inside line, he stamped on the anchors into the last corner to send two puffs of smoke from the fronts as they locked. Shedding the speed so violently meant that this time it was Leclerc who was first over the DRS line to hand the boost to the Red Bull.

That didn’t pay off, though. Such was the concession Verstappen made to retain second place, he was too far back to attempt a lunge into Turn 1 and had to sit behind the Ferrari for another lap. In the heat of the battle, Verstappen had time to complain about Leclerc pushing his luck with track limits. The somewhat curt response from race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase was: “You calm down. Let us do our work, mate. Just keep your head down.”

Lap 45 was a perfect snapshot of the battle: Leclerc bolted to the fastest first sector of the race, Verstappen responded with a blistering second sector. And then to complete the lap, two of the three bouts of Leclerc’s critical oversteer arrived at Turn 27 to cost back-to-back victories. Then from spinning up, the rears were too hot to give Leclerc another blinding first half a lap to escape the clutches of the Red Bull.

Verstappen cottoned onto Leclerc's tactic and powered past onto the main straight

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

When the Ferrari again broke free on entry to the final corner to compromise Leclerc’s exit, he was almost a sitting duck in a race when the DRS effect had been exaggerated.

Verstappen thumbed for the rear wing flag and tore past his rival down the main straight at the start of lap 47 to take a lead he wouldn’t let go. Leclerc was then forced to abort Turn 2 because of a half-baked sniff around the outside in retaliation. He was able to stay in touch, Leclerc snatching the point for fastest lap on the 48th tour.

That meant Leclerc might have had one last trick up his sleeve as he approached the end of the lap just over half a second behind, only for yellow flags to emerge, and remain, at Turn 1 to indicate that Alex Albon had tagged with Lance Stroll. The passing opportunity was gone, Verstappen sealing the glory by 0.549s.

“It wasn't easy, playing tricks in the last corner, but eventually I managed to get ahead,” said the victor. “I had a few good opportunities, but Charles really played it smart. It was not easy for me to actually get by. And of course, then I had to line myself up again to have another go at it.

“Eventually I had the go and I got ahead but then once I was ahead, it was really four laps flat-out trying to stay ahead because Charles was consistently in my DRS.”

Sainz was again tough on himself in third, saying he felt more at home on this track in the subpar 2021 Ferrari rather than the new machine capable of wins. But an experimental set-up direction on Friday has moved him closer to the two main protagonists.

A ‘hurt’ Perez sealed fourth over Russell’s “lonely” run to fifth.

Verstappen's victory puts him back into the title fight after a non-score in Bahrain

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Ahead, though, this was an amicable top two. Leclerc had pulled alongside Verstappen on the cool down lap to stick his thumb up and then congratulated his sparring partner over the radio.

“Oh my god, I really enjoyed that race,” said Leclerc. “Again, it's hard racing, but fair. Every race should be like this.”

It was the overtaking aid, not the new-for-2022 technical regulations, that should take most of the credit for creating the spectacle

It was an undeniably exciting contest, but Leclerc’s final sentiment might come with a health warning in that the elongated, back-to-back DRS zones made passing closer to a formality in many cases rather than the culmination of an epic scrap. It was the overtaking aid, not the new-for-2022 technical regulations, that should take most of the credit for creating the spectacle.

Ultimately, it was a race that entertained. However, as the drivers now desire talks over the place of Saudi on future F1 calendars given events earlier in the weekend, the on-track excitement – authentic or otherwise – might not be used as a credible way to argue for Jeddah to stay.

Verstappen and Leclerc enjoyed their fight

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images