Peter Windsor poured cold water at Carlos Sainz’s hopes ahead of the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Spanish driver in his recent post-race comments revealed that he believes Ferrari has got the capabilities to fight Red Bull neck-to-neck. However, Windsor, the former Ferrari manager snubbing the claim asserted otherwise and spoke in Max Verstappen’s favor.
Despite the Prancing Horse making significant progress coming into 2024, they are yet to match the RB20s. Adrian Newey’s cars are far superior in terms of race pace and straight-line speed. So much so that Sergio Perez’s race pace with old soft compounds was the same as that of Carlos Sainz’s fresher hard on a high degradation track like Bahrain.
The Jeddah Corniche Circuit being a fast race track gives Verstappen an extra advantage due to its pace advantage. This is one of the reasons why Windsor sided with the dominant Dutchman ahead of the second race of 2024. Speaking about this, the former Ferrari boss said in his latest Bahrain Race analysis video, “[If] it’s [the track that’s] gonna suit any car, it’s gonna suit the Red Bulls.”
“[Red Bulls are] Unbelievably quick in the straight line, unless the other teams of course can take off a massive amount of wing,” he further added.
Sainz, however, did not rule out Red Bull’s massive advantage in Jeddah. As much as he expects Verstappen and Co. to be there on the top, at the same time he is confident in Ferrari’s improvement.
Nonetheless, it is very unlikely that Sainz and his team will be able to beat Red Bull and Verstappen on a track like Jeddah. Given how dominantly they claimed the first win in Bahrain, chances are there for the Austrian team to take home the second win of 2024 as well.
How Red Bull is still at an advantage over Ferrari?
The inaugural race of the 2024 season showed why Red Bull is regarded very supreme against any team on the grid. The race saw Max Verstappen claim the pole position, take his 55th race win, take the fastest lap, and lead all 57 laps of the race. With a Grand Slam in the bag for Verstappen and Perez’s recovery from P5 to P2 gave Red Bull the perfect start, to say the least.
Notably, the layout of Bahrain International Circuit played out perfectly for the RB20s. Four long straights with three DRS zones brought out beast-like performance from Newey’s cars. This allowed Verstappen to open up a mega gap and deny Charles Leclerc or anyone else, any chance of overtaking.
The Monegasque started the race from P2. However, he could not overtake Verstappen and bring the Red Bull under his DRS window despite the new rule. From 2024, F1 allows teams to use DRS after just one lap of the race start. As the Dutchman smoked Leclerc with his speed, he finished the race with over 22 seconds gap to Perez.
All in all, the race in Jeddah could see something similar next week. Max Verstappen and Co. have been dominant around this circuit since its inception and it is unlikely that they would let go of that advantage. [Verstappen and Perez won the Saudi Arabian GP in 2022, and 2023, respectively.]
