Zoom Zoom: Saudi Arabia GP! Race 5 in the desert. Controversial start plays into who won the GP! One pissed off driver; Jeddah Opening Night Light show, and double the driver eye candy!

Welcome back Zoomies! The race season continues in the desert with Race 5 being held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Jeddah is the fastest track on the circuit, so the GP, if without incidents, ends much earlier than the other 23 races...zoom zoom, indeed!

My Driver Eye Candy of the Week is RB's Liam Lawson, but i mentioned a double eye candy, that is because I found some pix of Liam with Yuki, who where teammates in late 2024, then Liam got bumped up to first-class Red Bull team, but after two awful races to start 2025, was demoted back down to coach, while Yuki was given the upgrade! I knew I could find some drama somewhere this week! :)

I actually found a picture of Kiwi Liam smiling!

I have never had a desire to visit the Middle East, but with the Red Sea within walking distance, and the absolutely spectacular light show both in the sky and around the track, Jeddah may be calling me! Absolutely stunning- I am in awe! Here is a brief video of 2024's light show!

Pretty lights!

The Paddock Buzz has been quiet- not even any new haircuts! Only buzz I have is that J.Lo performed at one of the after-races! At the moment, McLaren (Team Papaya) leads the Constructors Cup (team) by a good margin over Mercedes, while in the Drivers Cup, with his win in Bahrain last week, Oscar Piastri is three points behind his Papaya teammate Lando Norris going into Jeddah. Max Verstappen lurking in 3rd just eight points back of Lando. Your Driver team grid: swap Lawson and Tsunoda: per reasons mentioned above.

P1: 60 minutes. The Jeddah track is the 3rd longest on the circuit, at over 3.8 miles a lap, and has 27 (!!!) turns. It's a pleasant 82 degrees on this track that is walking distance to the Red Sea, humidity at 71%, and light winds. Overall, a very warm but pleasant day in beautiful Jeddah! No incidents, but a bit of a surprise with Alpine's Pierre Gasly clocking the fastest practice lap time! P2: 60 minutes. It's nighttime, so the gorgeous lights are lighting up the track (the overhead shots-wow!), and this practice will be most similar to the Quali conditions on Saturday. One of the first shots we see are of Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto's car stripped down to its bones, and due to a fuel leak, Gabriel will not get that much needed practice time this session. 10 minutes in, Aston-Martin's Lance Stroll had his rear tyres lock up, causing him to spin out into the run-off area for a brief yellow flag, but he was able to sort himself and yellow flag lifted as Stroll races on. with about eight minutes to go, Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda on Turn 27 (the last turn!), goes into the turn left, but too tightly turned his wheels right and into the wall he goes. Yuki is okay, the car's front wing is about 20 feet ahead of the car, which is mildly damaged. Took almost 7 minutes to clear the track, and all the drivers racing out of the pit lane for one lap. Lando, Oscar and Max had the fastest practice lap times.

P3: 60 minutes. 82 degrees and cooling with light winds. No incidents, other than drivers are complaining of their drinking apparatus splashing around in their face! (Perhaps David can did up a video of this gadget!). Onto qualis at night!

A note on how Qualifying works: There are three quick races to determine grid position for the GP race. First quali the last five drivers are cut, second quali again, last five drivers dropped, and 3rd and final quali determines the top ten on the grid and the ever important pole (1st) position. This also applies to the Sprint Qualis, you will just see me use SQ1 to show the difference.

Driver Eye Candy- Doubled up!

Liam and Yuki before the switch! Pocket racers!

Q1: 18 minutes. Warm weather (84 degrees) 5 MPH winds, but are still. No incidents, so bottom 5/back of grid are: Bortoleto/Sauber, Doohan, Alpine, Stroll, Aston-Martin, Ocon/Haas, and Hulkenberg/Sauber. Q2: 16 minutes. No incidents, so the next bottom 5 are: Bearman/Haas, Hadjar/RB, Alonso/Aston-Martin, Lawson/RB and Albon/Williams. Q3: 12 minutes: Two minutes in, and McLaren's Lando Norris's wheels hit the curb hard on Turn 5 and skidded into the barrier, messing up the left side of his car and ending his Q3. Lando's okay, but Red Flag puts a hold on the quali for a few minutes. Restart at 8:32 and not other incidents, so the battle for pole comes down to Oscar Max and George, with Max taking pole, by 0.10th over Oscar, with George in 3rd. Charles LeClerc might as well be paying rent at this point for the 4th position, Antonelli, 5th, Sainz, 6th, Hamilton, 7th, Tsunoda, 8th, Gasly, 9th, and Norris will start 10th on the grid.

Someone asked a very good question- so here is the answer to a Grand Prix race points breakdown for each race:

In Formula 1, points are awarded to the top 10 finishers in a Grand Prix, with the winner receiving 25 points. The points system is structured as follows: 1st place - 25 points, 2nd place - 18 points, 3rd place - 15 points, 4th place - 12 points, 5th place - 10 points, 6th place - 8 points, 7th place - 6 points, 8th place - 4 points, 9th place - 2 points, and 10th place - 1 point.

Eye Candy Alert:

What game are Liam and Yuki playing?

Saudi Arabia GP: 50 laps. 27 turns, the most of any circuit. 84 degrees at night and humid under the pretty bright lights. I broke a golden rule when I watched this on DVR playback, which I will reveal very shortly. Betting is that is that this is a Hard tyre race, some drivers starting on mediums.

LIGHTS OUT, and on the first turn, Oscar manages to hold the driving line/apex, sliding Max off to the side, but Max took the lead back (More on this later!). Meanwhile back in the middle of the pack, Alpine's Pierre Gasly makes a clean lunge, but bumps tyres with Yuki, and BAM!- sending them both into the wall! Both drivers ok, but Pierre's car is a mess, and his GP is over (DNF). Yuki somehow is able to continue on in his Red Bull track for about a lap, until he is called into the pit, and as any person who drives a car knows, when said car makes a sound that just isn't natural, that's not a good sign, so Red Bull retired Yuki's car (DNF). The golden rule I broke is to NEVER be as chilled and relaxed on Turn 1!!! Lesson learned! Safety car deployed as the the track clean up of Pierre's car.

Two laps wiped off, so a 47 lap race now. Max has been hit with a 5 second PENALTY which he will have to serve on his first pit stop. Analysis: the other option available was for Max and Red Bull to hand the position back, but they didn't, and so the stewards slapped Max with the penalty, which from Max's comments on the radio, expressed extreme displeasure with the decision! Lap 21 has Oscar pitting to change to the hards, as does Russell, and Max, who withthe 5 second penalty, has a pit stop of 8.3 seconds, and comes out in 5th. Oscar made my Overtake of the Race move on Turn 21 on Hamilton to get into 3rd; I could watch that overtake on repeat! Leclerc and Norris are 1-2, and neither has pitted yet, though advantage Lando, as his hard tyres are holding up well, and LeClerc, on Mediums, is going to have to pit soon to change to Hards.

Lap 25 had Bortoleto almost taking Alonso out in the back of the grid; the funny part is that Alonso is Gabriel's manager! That's good be an interesting post-race talk between those two! Lap 30 has LeClerc pitting to change for to Hards in a season best 2.0 seconds. Lap 34 has Lando pit to Medium tyres, and comes out 5th. Oscar leading Max by 4.5 seconds, with Russell in 3rd, with LeClerc hunting Georgie down to overtake Russell, who is not comfy with his tyre conditions. LeClerc passes Russell on the next lap, and on Lap 41, Lando overtakes Georgie...he is definitely worried about his tyres.

The other battle going on is between the two Williams cars, Sainz and Albon, trying to hold off RB's Hadjar for the last points. Last lap has Lando pushing hard on LeClerc, but not enough, as LeClerc takes 3rd, Max takes 2nd (first time since 2021 Max has not won this race!), and McLaren's Oscar Piastri wins his second Grand Prix in a row at Jeddah, beating Max by 2.8 seconds! (Remember earlier when I mentioned that Max/Red Bull should have given the place back to Oscar, but instead took the 5 second penalty? Do the math! :)

Notes: Max was voted Driver of the Day (?????) but Max was PISSED! Shortest post-race interview ever, then in the top 3 drivers cool down room, should've been named the Steam Room as Max was fuming, while Oscar and Charles watched the race highlights and chatted away. Even on the podium, Max, was sour! Update: Turns out Max wasn't just upset abou the penalty, but he was seen being scolded/reprimanded by an FIA official (for dropping the F-bomb on team radio), so that would explain his reserved, sour mood! First podium for Charles LeClerc and Ferrari in a GP this season. No more 4th place for him! The Williams drivers were able to snag points with 8th/9th finish, putting them ahead at the moment of the Haas team in the Constructor's (team) Championship. Antonelli and Hadjar continue to show why they are the best rookies this season, both finishing in the top ten! With the win, Oscar now leads Papaya teammate Lando by 10 points, with Max not far behind in the Drivers Championship.

No racing until first weekend of May, which will be in Miami, which will also have a Sprint race. Oh, and one driver will have finished his duties as one of the co-chairs of the Met Gala!

I'll leave you with some cool artwork from the Jeddah race!