Pérez triumphs but Verstappen storms back to keep his title lead

Mexican wins second race of the season while his Red Bull teammate finishes second

- Giles Richards

Two races into the new Formula One season and the numbers are already adding up to an ominous portent of what is to come. With a one-two in the first round in Bahrain, Red Bull repeated the feat once more at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. This time it was Sergio Pérez who led teammate and reigning world champion Max Verstappen home, but by the time they took the flag both drivers had simply left the rest of the grid in an altogether different race.

Pérez won from pole position but Verstappen drove superbly to comeback from 15th after he suffered a driveshaft problem in qualifying. Fernando Alonso finished a distant third for Aston Martin and was then demoted to fourth after being given a 10-second penalty post-race for incorrectly serving an in-race penalty. It promoted George Russell to third and demoted the Spaniard to fourth. Lewis Hamilton finished fifth, a glimmer of improvement for Mercedes after a trying first race of the season.

It was far from a thriller under the floodlights at the Jeddah Corniche circuit; rather more a showcase of what increasingly looks to be the indisputable advantage Red Bull hold. Some drivers have already posited the notion that Red Bull could take a clean sweep of 23 races. this season, a seemingly impossible target that remains an awfully long way off, but on this form they have the machinery to at very least make it a possibility.