The second round of the F1 season ended in Saudi Arabia for Red Bull Max Verstappen’s to a second consecutive win. In an unexpected race, the double victory was completed Sergio Perez before Ferrari Charles Leclerc.
Valtteri Bottas The pace of the Sauber team was abysmal. The Finn was the last to finish, 17th.
Although the recent F1 races have not offered the best in terms of sports, there are still plenty of topics to talk about in the darkest of clouds.
Who surprised?
18 years old Oliver Bearman perfectly suited the 29-year-old from Ferrari who had to undergo appendicitis surgery Carlos Sainz.
The driver of Ferrari’s own Academy received an emergency alert on Friday. On Thursday, he had driven to pole position in the F2 series qualifying and would have started on the first grid for Saturday’s main race.
Due to a Ferrari repair, the young British driver missed both F2 races of the weekend. However, Bearman gave such displays in Ferrari sticks that he was certainly remembered by the entire F1 world.
The street circuit in Saudi Arabia is one of the most difficult in the series. However, Bearman accepted the challenge with a glove and was a promising 11th in qualifying, just barely outside the top ten.
In the race on Saturday, Bearman convinced with his maturity and flawlessness. He cleared the difficult starting point without getting hit and made a few decent passes.
He was seventh in the final results and brought six important World Cup points to the Italian team. Urheilu’s F1 expert Jukka Mildh laughed at the cool-headed performance of the third-youngest F1 competitor of all time.
– An incredibly great performance. Young drivers are coming into their own, and this was a sign that there will be big driver changes in the series in the next few years, Mildh refers to young promises.
Ferrari team manager Fred Vasseur had given the yellow dog an instruction to surely drive to the finish line.
– He was told not to become a hero. In these situations, the driver is told to drive steady laps and bring the car home, and he did just fine.
What speaks?
At the same time, Bearman’s top success is the biggest talking point of the entire weekend. Career development has been amazing. Last season in the F2 series, he finished sixth as a rookie, achieving several race victories.
He started this F2 season as a strong champion favorite, but after two race weekends he is without points. However, the F1 victory was the kind of display from Bearman that offsets the F2 championship as well.
– The result was so strong that it canceled almost the entire F2 season at once. Sure, he has to make it there and this shouldn’t go to his head, but this was a significant leap. He immediately emerged as a driver to be reckoned with, with whom one can talk about an F1 place.
Mildh reminds us that Bearman’s sensational driving is also a significant act in Finnish terms. Bearman was selected for the Ferrari Academy in 2021, when Finland’s super talent was also among the candidates Tuukka Taponen.
17-year-old Taponen was selected for the academy a year later. The Finn, who lives in Maranello, brightened up the beginning of the year by winning the high-level Middle East Formula Regional championship in showmanship.
Leclerc has also followed Ferrari’s academy path. The Ferrari Academy doesn’t have as much talent as, say, Red Bull, but there is a focus on quality. The examples of Leclerc and Bearman show that the Italian giant knows how to find real talents.
Taponen, who has won three world championship medals in karting, may well represent the same continuum. The top players who have attended the Ferrari Academy are mentally ready for tough places.
– We have to watch the continuation of the Finnish F1 story, because you don’t know how it will turn out for Valtteri Bottas. Taponen is in the same pipeline at Ferrari as Bearman. It can happen in exactly the same way as it happened to Bearman. This increases hopes that Bottas will get a Finnish successor, Mildh enthuses.
Despite his F2 busyness, Bearman is Ferrari’s official reserve driver.
– That’s why you have to be part of Ferrari’s pipeline. He has had to drive a lot of simulator. It’s not just driving in formula two, but working with Ferrari’s F1 team. In this sense, it will be interesting to see what kind of driver pipeline Taponen gets into.
Who flopped?
Driving in Formula 1 already for the eighth season By Lance Stroll the distress of it as it grows. The 25-year-old Canadian, who drove poorly last season, crashed his Aston Martin into the wall on the seventh lap of the race.
The co-owner of the stable is Stroll’s father, Lawrence Stroll. Mildh says that otherwise the already well-experienced driver would have already been kicked out.
– It was such a bad mistake, because he ran into the guardrail while driving alone. He misjudged the driving line, which is a really bad display. The pressure is huge, which you saw when he got out of the car. I hope he is treated professionally in the team so that he can get things together.
What about Bottas?
Valtteri Bottas’ Sauber team driving around was horrible to watch. Bottas and team mate and Zhou Guanyu were the last drivers to finish.
Bottas is in his third season with the team. In terms of pace, the season is becoming a sky of pain like last season.
– Overall, Sauber’s race performance was depressing, Mildh sums up.
However, Mildh doesn’t want to poke a Finn. It has been known for a long time that Audi, owned by the car giant Volkswagen, will take over Sauber’s team in 2026. Bild reported this week that Audi would have bought the entire team for itself.
Mildh sees that the big changes around have confused the competition.
– Audi’s involvement in this way can even slow down Sauber’s development. This requires a lot of patience from Bottas.
What next?
The F1 season continues in two weeks at the Albert Park circuit in Australia. Until then, the talk around Red Bull will certainly continue to be heated.
Team manager accused of inappropriate behavior Christian Horner has been in the middle of a lot of noise for a long time. Vyyhti has rarely had new twists that day, and last week it was reported how Red Bull had dismissed a woman working as an employee of its team. He accuses Horner of inappropriate behavior.
The most recent twist in the saga was that he was acting as an advisor to the team Helmut Markon messages between Horner and a female employee were suspected of being leaked to the media. CEO of Red Bull Oliver Mintzlaff took 80-year-old Marko into the conversation, and many thought that his position was under threat.
However, according to current information, Marko is allowed to continue in his position. Mildh speculated that Red Bull’s internal tension could be seen in the race in Saudi Arabia.
At the beginning of the race, Sergio Perez recklessly let the Aston Martin into the pits Fernando Alonso to the front, for which the Red Bull driver received a five-second time penalty and one penalty point.
– Red Bull has hardly made such mistakes. These are exactly the points where that uncertainty can appear. The world’s best F1 team shouldn’t make such mistakes, says Mildh.