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2023 FIA Formula One World Championship
2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Jeddah Corniche Circuit
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Sunday, 19 March 2023
Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen will be targeting another 25 points as he looks to win the
Saudi Arabian Grand Prix for the second year running on Sunday, March 19.
The two-time reigning World Champion beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to the checkered flag by 0.549 seconds last year, with the duo having battled it out for P1 since lap 15.
Verstappen continued where he left off in 2022 by winning the opening race of the new season, having led the Bahrain Grand Prix comfortably from the start to finish 11.987 seconds ahead of Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.
Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso took P3 to complete the podium after Leclerc was forced to retire on lap 40 due to mechanical failure while running in third.
The Dutchman secured P2 in the inaugural race at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in 2021 and was given a 10 second time penalty following an incident with winner Lewis Hamilton, who ran into the back of his rival on lap 37 after Verstappen had dropped his speed dramatically in order to let the Mercedes driver pass on order from the stewards for an illegal overtake.
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Formula 1 plans to trial a new qualifying format at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in two months' time focused on tyres, with hard compounds mandated for Q1, mediums in Q2 and softs in Q3.
Verstappen doesn't see how the changes will benefit qualifying as he believes it is more advantageous for the competitors to be closer together.
"I hope it's not going to be cold in Imola, otherwise it's going to be tricky!" he said. "I don't think we need to actually do these kinds of things in qualifying. I don't really see the benefit of it.
"It's better if we make sure that all the cars are close to each other and more competitive, instead of spicing things up in that way, which I think is yeah, probably for the show."
2023 Bahrain Grand Prix results:
Winner: Max Verstappen - Red Bull Racing
Second Place: Sergio Perez - Red Bull Racing
Third Place: Fernando Alonso - Aston Martin
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