JEDDAH - His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, witnessed today, Sunday, the Formula 1 Saudi Grand Prix competitions at the Jeddah Corniche circuit.

Video and photos: Bandar Al-Jaloud

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British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton succeeded in the stc Formula 1 Saudi Grand Prix, in which he raised the red flag twice, and in which the safety car was activated more than once, out of Jeddah at the same distance from the Dutchman Max Verstappen, his competitor in Red Bull, who finished second , with a number of points (369.5), after also obtaining a point for the fastest lap, before the final round of the World Championship scheduled for Sunday in Abu Dhabi.

After the thrilling win, Hamilton said: “I’ve been racing for a long time, but this race has been incredibly difficult, I tried to be as solid and mature as I could, with all my experience over the years, it was tough, but we persevered as a team.”

Verstappen had to raise the gap with Hamilton from 8 to 26 points, in order to win the title and break Mercedes’ monopoly on the drivers’ title, which the German manufacturer won in the past seven seasons.

But Hamilton seemed determined to postpone the final round of fire, next Sunday, in Abu Dhabi, since the qualifying tests, which he finished first in front of his Finnish colleague Valtteri Bottas and Verstappen, respectively.

It was a busy day for Mercedes not only because of Hamilton’s victory, but also because Bottas snatched third place from French Alpine driver Esteban Ocon, a few meters before crossing the finish line.

Under the floodlights of the track, Hamilton remained at the start in front of Bottas, behind them was Verstappen, Monaco’s son Charles Leclerc and Mexican Sergio Perez, the other Red Bull driver.

Hamilton began to move away and reached the difference to about a second and a half after 5 laps in front of Bottas, who tried to protect the back of the world champion, and delayed Verstappen as much as possible, but the Finn was not satisfied with this role, but also pressed and moved away from the Dutch driver.

Hamilton ran his race without real pressure and gradually expanded the difference until the tenth lap when the safety car entered after a major accident for German Mick Schumacher, the Haas driver.

Hamilton took advantage of this to replace the tires with the hard type, as did his colleague Bottas, while Verstappen chose to stay on the track, unlike his teammate Pires and Leclerc.

The Dutchman complained in contact with his team about the deceptive strategy of Mercedes, and Bottas delaying him during the presence of the safety car in order to allow time for Hamilton to make his stop, which made the Red Bull driver the choice to stay on the track and nothing else, because if he decided to stop, he would have been very late behind World Champion.

But the stewards’ decision to raise the red flag and stop the race due to damage to the safety wall as a result of the collision, re-shuffled the cards and allowed Verstappen to replace his tires and start in front of Hamilton, who complained about the decision to stop the race.

Ocon also benefited from the lack of stopping during the presence of the safety car, as he started from fourth place after stopping in front of Australian Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren), Leclerc and compatriot Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri).

The drivers lined up on the starting line instead of behind the safety car to complete the remaining 36 laps, and Hamilton initially managed to overtake Verstappen, but the latter responded and regained his position after leaving the track illegally, which confused the Briton and allowed Ocon to overtake him.

But the race was stopped again seconds later after two accidents by Peres and Russia’s Nikita Mazepin (Haas), who withdrew from the race, as did Britain’s George Russell (Williams), in which Mazepin collided.

The race stewards chose Red Bull to start behind Hamilton to avoid opening an investigation against Verstappen for his off-track overtaking of the Briton, but with Ocon in front of the title race poles, since he overtook the Mercedes driver in the latter’s incident with the Dutchman before the race was stopped for the second time.

Red Bull principal Christian Horner agreed to the proposal of FIA Racing Director Michael Massey, and the drivers returned to line up on the starting line.

Verstappen managed to get ahead of Hamilton and then Ocon and lead the race, then the Mercedes driver managed to overtake the French and catch up with his Dutch rival.

After Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) collided with former world champion German Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin), the virtual safety car was activated on lap 24, but only for one lap in order to remove the remains from the track.

By lap 27, Hamilton was so close to Verstappen that he fought back with the help of a twice-activated virtual safety car to lift flying debris from Vettel’s car off the track after a collision with Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo).

The drivers returned to racing on lap 33, with Verstappen maintaining a difference of between a second and a second and a half ahead of Hamilton, coinciding with the activation of the virtual safety car again on lap 36.

Then the two drivers got into a fight that almost took them out of the race, after Verstappen lost control of his car during an attempt to overtake Hamilton, but he stayed in front of the latter after he went off the track.

Verstappen wanted to allow Hamilton to overtake him because he stayed in front of the latter after going off the track, but the Briton did not expect the Red Bull driver to brake, to allow him to overtake him, and he collided with him, which broke the front wing of the Mercedes car, amid massive indignation from the 7-time world champion.

Hamilton stayed on the track despite the damage to his car, but the difference between him and Verstappen became more than two seconds, and then gradually decreased again.

As Hamilton did not overtake him while trying to allow the Briton to overtake him, Verstappen slowed down to allow him to overtake him but was ready to respond quickly and regain position.

However, he returned and allowed the Briton to overtake him because of the way he gave up his position and regained it again at the first attempt, coinciding with the Dutchman being penalized by five seconds for overtaking the Mercedes driver from outside the track in the previous accident between them.

Hamilton began to move away from Verstappen until he crossed the finish line, which witnessed a wonderful pass by Bottas on Ocon to take third place.