ROUND 5: 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia
FORMULA 1 STC SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 2021
- Number of laps: 50
- Circuit Length: 6.174 km
- Race Distance: 308.45 km
- Lap record: 1:30.734 Lewis Hamilton (2021)
- 2024 winner: Max Verstappen
FORMULA 1 STC SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX 2025
I agree with the stewards here that it’s on Max. Though he will happily keep track position and try to make a gap. This is a classic Max move, one of his signatures tbh. Wasn’t it Mexico last year as well for example? Really kind of tired of this stuff from him honestly.
EDIT: I completely agree about the penalty though and I thought they already said they were going to use 10 sec as the baseline just for the reason that 5 is so often worth it.
All champions we had in the past 30 or so years were willing to play dirty. It’s part of the sport really… or rather, soap opera where occasionally some cars drive around.
I absolutely know why he does it and it’s very smart. Like I said, taking the 5 seconds is absolutely worth it.
I’m still kind of tired of it though.
Yeah, the penalty is almost a “tut tut”, especially considering the pace Max currently shows. He’s adding tenths per lap to everyone behind him.
Did you see that replay on the international feed just now? Piastri was going to
divebombforce contact if he didn’t go off. I think both their behaviours are fair play to try in racing, but saying this is classic unsportsmanlike behaviour seems like you’re being influenced too much by British commentators.It was literally the other way around with Hamilton in Monza but somehow both situations were his fault? He is ofcourse a driver that will race on the edge of the rules so of he gets punished for something he’ll force others into it.
I’m not British and I don’t listen to the British feed, but I have admittedly seen this move from Max enough that I might admittedly carry some prejudice from that.
Fair enough, I do listen to the British commentators since they are just more pleasant to listen to vocally for me than the Dutch speaking ones. But their commentating is just always anti-Verstappen. Yet even they ceded after the replay of the incident that Piastri is lucky he just barely got control of his car in time.
Sky or F1? If you have access to the official F1 colmentators, they tend to have a much more neutral view.
Also, I’m currently watching the F1 stream synced with audio from Grand Prix Radio (Olav Mol & Jack Plooij). So, less glorifying of Max. (I’m currently watching with my mother whose level of English is much lower, so prefers Dutch commentary.)
F1TV international feed with Palmer etc. I know they’re not the most neutral and I don’t expect them to be. I just enjoy the hype they’re good at bringing. But I do think many people let their opinion on the race be influenced by them. (Just like if you watch MMA you’ll be influenced by the often very dumb opinion of Rogan).
I’m Flemish, so the accent of any Dutch person grates too much for me. ;-) (‘g’ doesn’t have to sound like a failed gear change every damn word ;-) )
Fuck me, dead! Hahaha 😂.
As a Dutchie I feel this, whenever the feed glitches and it resets, it defaults to Dutch and it’s a race to turn it back to the English feed before I cringe at the commentary.
You could try listening to the other English feed, there’s nothing like Croft and Brundle imo even though they are very likely to talk a lot about Hamilton and Norris
Haha, I get that! And yeah, personally I prefer Alex Jacques and co of the international feed as well.