JEDDAH — Mexican Sergio Perez deservedly snatched the 2023 Formula1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix title after a thrilling duel with his Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen on Sunday, at the Jeddah Corniche circuit. In the much-anticipated race, Perez won the race over Verstappen, who was 5.3 seconds behind him. Verstappen showed real grit as he steered his car from the 15th place in the starting grid to nearly pull off a victory. Perez set the pace from the pole spot, and showed tremendous acumen to hold off a charging Verstappen to win the Gran Prix race in style. Perez set the pace in qualifying session after achieving the best lap with a time of 1 minute, 28.265 seconds. In 3rd place came Spaniard Fernando Alonso, driver of the Aston Martin team, just 20.7 seconds behind Verstappen. Alonso was in the fray for most of the race, but was reeled in late in Verstappen to drop to third from second berth. In the drivers' standings, Mercedes driver George Russell came in 4th, with another Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton coming in 5th, followed by Spaniard Carlos Sainz Jr, the Ferrari driver, who ranked 6th. In 7th position was his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc, then Esteban Ocon of the Alpine Team in 8th place, followed by Pierre Gasly of the Alpha Tauri team in 9th place, then Kevin Magnussen of the Haas team in 10th place, with the 11th place going to Yuki Tsunoda of the Alpha Tauri team. Nico Hulkenberg of the Haas team came in 12th place, then Zhou Guanyu of the Alfa Romeo team took 13th place, followed by Nyck de Vries of the Alpha Tauri team in the 14th place, McLaren team's Oscar Piastri was in the 15th place with Logan Sargeant of the Williams team in 16th. Lando Norris of McLaren finished 17th while Valtteri Bottas of the Alfa Romeo team came in 18th. Alexander Albon of the Williams team took the 19th place, while Lance Stroll of the Aston Martin team came in 20th to round off the numbers. The early battle was in earnest between Perez and Alonso in the race's 20 laps with the top two blazing a hot trail. Lower down, Hamilton and Verstappen at 8 and 9 were waging their own battle lower down, till Verstappen broke free to catch up with the leaders, and relegating Hamilton to the 5th place. Ferrari driver Leclerc, who received a 10-place grid penalty during the qualifying session causing him to start from the 12th place in the grid, too showed grit and finesse to stay in the hunt, but the task was too hard for him as he finished in 7th place. It is worth mentioning that the 2023 Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix started on March 17-18-19, which was held for the third time in a row in Saudi Arabia. The Red Bull team was at the forefront of the winning teams in Saudi Arabia. In 2021, Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes won the title, while in 2022 Max Verstappen of Red Bull team took the title. And now his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez added another title for the Red Bull team. The race was held in the presence of the Minister of Sports Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki, Prince Khalid Bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal, president of the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation (SAMF), and many officials.
