Saudi Arabia has quickly become one of my new favourite tracks. It’s the second longest and second fastest circuit on the calendar, and that adds up to some pretty exciting racing.

It was a little bit of a contentious race with lots of safety cars and some heat between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Hamilton started on pole, and he did go on to win the inaugural race. However, the race took some turns with two red flags which kept everyone on their toes. The first incident came on lap ten when Mick Schumacher hit the barriers at turn 23. Originally the safety car was deployed, but Michael Masi subsequently called a red flag so the barriers could be safely repaired. This initial red flag became a source of friction between the top two teams and particularly between Hamilton and Verstappen. Mercedes was the first to make a move under the safety car and pitted Hamilton and Bottas which led to a change in the lead as Verstappen stayed out. However, under Red Flag regulations the mechanics are allowed to do some work on the cars while waiting for the race to resume. This meant that Verstappen was able to get new tyres without having to make a pit stop.

Drivers questioned after the race expressed what their feelings are towards this rule, and quite a few of them don’t like it, for that exact reason. I think under this rule teams should be able to repair some damaged parts of a car, but I think tyres should remain untouched.

The next big moment of controversy occurred at the race restart. Verstappen was on pole, but as they went into turn one Verstappen went wide and rejoined the track in front of Hamilton, who had fallen behind Esteban Ocon and into third place. More chaos ensued on the restart as Sergio Perez was tagged by Charles Leclerc and Nikita Mazepin slammed into George Russell, ending the race for all three drivers, excluding Leclerc and bringing out another safety car and then an immediate red flag. During this red flag stoppage there was a lot of chatter between Mercedes, Red Bull and the FiA to decided which driver would start on pole again. Verstappen had come into the pits under the red flag in first, but it was decided that he would have to give the place back to Hamilton because cutting the corner gave him an unfair advantage.

When the restart finally came, it would be Ocon on pole, Hamilton in Second and Verstappen in third. Once the race resumed Hamilton tried to get around Ocon but ending up clipping him slightly, allowing Verstappen to slip through. On lap 37 after a wealth of Virtual Safety Cars, Hamilton was finally able to make his move against Verstappen, but he braked late and went wide off the track again, meaning Hamilton would stay behind. Upon review, the stewards decided that Verstappen needed to give the place back as Hamilton was ahead going into the corner. This was a trigger moment that sparked the biggest controversy not only of this race but perhaps of the entire season. Verstappen was told to once again give the lead back and started to slow down on the back part of the circuit. However, Hamilton had apparently not received this information in time, and caught off guard clipped the back of the Red Bull. This has fueled a lot of discussion online and here is my honest opinion. Hamilton should have been advised first that Verstappen was asked to give the place back, not the other way around. Secondly, people have been saying, that if it had been any other car, Hamilton would have just driven right passed them, and not “waited to be in the DRS detection zone”. To that I say, you’re wrong. We are late in the season and it is important that Hamilton drive cautiously, he simply did not want to pass him for fear of getting a penalty because he drove by without knowing why Verstappen was slowing. Whatever opinion I have, is irrelevant in all honesty because we will never know for sure what happened between the two of them or why Hamilton didn’t pass, or why the message took that much longer to get to him.

Finally, Verstappen went wide one more time, but this time the stewards took note and handed Verstappen a five second time penalty. As the race was coming to a close Verstappen’s tyres started to lose pace and Hamilton was able to overtake him to win the race forcing the Dutchman into second place.

Meanwhile behind the two Championship leaders, Ocon was driving brilliantly in third place, looking set to complete the podium. However, towards the end, Valtteri Bottas was closing in, and finally on the last straight of the race, Bottas managed to squeeze by Ocon, with the help of DRS, to take third place by only one tenth of a second.

The Driver’s Championship is now level on points going into this last race. Verstappen holds the lead purely due to having more wins throughout the season. That means that in order for Hamilton to win the Championship, he must have more points then Verstappen after the race. However, if for some reason they both don’t finish the race, Verstappen will be the champion because of his win total. Red Bull is now 28 points behind Mercedes in the Constructor’s Championship. So they are not as close, and will have some work to do if they want to take both titles.

There were two real safety cars as mentioned above, but their was also three virtual safety cars through laps 28 to 36 to pick up debris from all the crashes and collisions. It definitely prolonged the race and forced the strategists to think about their race plans.

There were many forced retirements this race, all crash related. It was a very unfortunate weekend for Haas who saw both of their drivers DNF. Also among the unlucky casualties were George Russell, Sebastian Vettel and Sergio Perez, which was bad news for Red Bull in their fight with Mercedes.

Lewis Hamilton fought hard this race to finish in the top spot. Max Verstappen came runner up ahead of Valtteri Bottas who completed the podium. Esteban Ocon finished fourth followed by Daniel Ricciardo in fifth, Pierre Gasly in sixth, Leclerc in seventh, Carlos Sainz in eighth, Antonio Giovinazzi in ninth, and Lando Norris rounding out the top ten.

We are already into this weekend’s racing in Abu Dhabi which I think will be a nail bitter as we round out racing for the season.