Our verdict on Verstappen vs Leclerc and DRS games

Formula 1 2022 already looks like an ultra-close championship battle, but this time it’s Max Verstappen/Red Bull versus Charles Leclerc/Ferrari.

For the second time in a week, Verstappen and Leclerc had an enthralling wheel-to-wheel battle involving some DRS mischief, but this time Verstappen came out on top.

Here’s our writers’ verdict on what we learned from the pair’s latest dice and what it’s telling us about 2022 style F1 racing.

GREAT RACE BUT LET’S TRY F1 WITHOUT DRS

Gary Anderson

A great race and great respect between Verstappen and Leclerc. I must admit I would have liked to see Sergio Perez still in there but the safety car put paid to that.

It is great to see that the new regulations are working and with two tracks with very different set-ups as far as downforce versus straightline speed is concerned, we now see that there can be a battle between two cars for more than one corner.

It will be great to see how the racing turns out when those two cars turn into four or five cars battling.

Also interesting was the battle for who would cross the last DRS line first or who would get the DRS across the start finish line.

I’m not a fan of DRS and I think they should perhaps move the detection line further away from the corner or perhaps they should do away with it for a race or two to see how those races turn out.

I would love to see a few races where the drivers couldn’t rely on the DRS to overtake or only have it once a lap. For some drivers it would change the complete dynamic of how they go about their racing.

This could be the ideal title battle

Edd Straw

Hopefully these first two races are the start of a sustained battle involving Verstappen and Leclerc. We’ve had some teasers in the past but the hope is they will continue to cross swords.

What’s been great is that it has been a battle about all aspects of a driver’s art: speed, wheel-to-wheel fighting, intelligence. The ideal ingredients for a title battle perhaps.

That’s what both of the drivers will have in mind too after the first two races – although there’s every chance there will be others involved in the fights at the front.

After all, it was Perez who had control of the race before the ill-timed pitstop.

Verstappen learned and adapted

Scott Mitchell

I thought Leclerc was going to outsmart Verstappen in battle but Max showed a bit more guile than he’s often given credit for.

This one came down to the antics around the DRS detection line.

Leclerc had Verstappen covered the first two times, first making sure he had the DRS and second when Verstappen misjudged it and slowed down way too much.

But Verstappen knew he’d have more opportunities and on the third attempt he showed he’d learned where to position his car and judge the approach speed.

Yes, he benefitted from certain circumstances – but when he got the opportunity he made sure he won out in the end.

DRS GAMES CROSSED THE LINE INTO EMBARRASSING

Matt Beer

I love a bit of wheel-to-wheel racing, I’m happy enough with DRS as an overall concept and I normally really like canny tactics.

But watching the 2022 F1 title rivals trying to ‘out-slow’ each other to avoid being first over a painted white line was just a daft spectacle.

The Jeddah layout and DRS set-up make this race a particularly acute case but already after just two grands prix it feels like deliberately letting people past in order to repass them is going to be a fashionable battle tactic under the 2022 rules. It was clever and impressive once, but it’s a pretty empty spectacle in the long run.

It’s clear who’s not in the title fight

Jack Cozens

More than anything else, the fight for the Saudi Arabian GP win looked like one between the two drivers who will scrap for the 2022 title.

On a weekend where we saw the best from Red Bull’s designated second driver, including in the race, Ferrari’s ‘other’ driver couldn’t quite find the same level as his team-mate when it mattered.

A second podium in two races is far from a bad start for Carlos Sainz, but it’s also two races in a row where he’s had the initiative right before the crucial part of the weekend and not been able to close it out. Just as in Bahrain where he was outqualified by Leclerc in the final moments of qualifying, so too in Jeddah did Sainz allow his team-mate to nip ahead when in mattered on Saturday after failing to improve on his second run.

In Bahrain that perhaps wasn’t as important with more opportunities to overtake, but if you look at how the Saudi Arabian GP unfolded then surely the only way Sainz could have finished ahead of Leclerc was by outqualifying him.

Leclerc’s been at such a high level in the first two races of the season and Sainz hasn’t been far off, but that’s not quite enough in a scrap as intense as this looks like it could be.

Considering Red Bull’s resurgence this weekend and the size of the fight Ferrari will have on its hands if it wants to stay ahead, for my money Leclerc’s single-lap pace and the way he handled himself in battle with Verstappen will have gone a long way towards making him Ferrari’s nomination for the title.