Verstappen FURIOUS with Saudi Arabian GP penalty!

It was a case of Mad Max here last night in Jeddah after the Red Bull driver was handed a five-second penalty, which resulted in Oscar Piastri taking his third win of the season. You’ve probably seen the vision, but what was clear was Oscar was in front of turn one. Max went off at turn two. And at some point thereafter, the stewards agreed that Max had gained an unfair advantage. They didn’t give him a full ten-second penalty because it was a lap one incident. They reduced it to five seconds, but that was enough for Oscar to regain the lead after Max served the penalty at his one only pit stop.

Let me tell you about what I saw post-race. For a start, he was very short in the interviews out on track, just simply thanking the fans, choosing to say no more. But it was more so in the press conference thereafter, where we were listening to Max repeatedly say, no. It’s probably best I don’t say anything. I’ll get into trouble. It’s probably a good thing for me because I get to say less. Yes, he was angry, very angry.

Up on the podium, you may have noticed that when the other two, or actually three, were spraying bubbly about, he simply had a swig out of his bottle and pretty much moved away from that main celebration for the McLaren driver. I don’t think he’s got anything against Oscar; he was just not gonna be taking part in a celebration that he felt was unfair.

No doubt you have your own opinion on that, and certainly on the comment I put up post-race, there was plenty of conjecture as to whether or not it was right. No doubt Max is a fierce competitor, and if he thinks he’s been done wrong, he’s not frightened to say it. Although last night he was frightened to say it for fear of being penalized further for saying what he thinks.

Now there was lots of chatter in the paddock afterwards that Lando had done his dash in terms of the 2025 championship, and now it’s all for Oscar’s taking. Certainly, it was a magnificent drive from Oscar. And after the race, we had Oscar’s normal subdued excitement and celebration. He is now at even shorter odds to win the 2025 championship. And, yes, as it sits at the moment, he leads the World Drivers’ Championship and is the first Aussie to do so in some fifteen years.

Other things over the weekend. Now this took me by great surprise, this picture of Yuki Tsunoda from forty-two floors above the track on Saturday had huge cut through with you guys. It’s available as a print on canvas, on paper, a whole lot of different options for you if you head to the shop at Kym’s Images. If you loved it as much as many of my Instagram audience did, pick yourself up a copy of it there.

On Instagram, what was my biggest post of the weekend? Was it Oscar winning? Was it Max angry? It was neither. Kimi Antonelli and his girlfriend Eliska, or Elle for short. First time we’ve seen her in the paddock. She’s a carter from the Czech Republic, similar age as Kimi, and they’ve been friends for a long time. This post here had over a million views, and that was the first time this year we’ve seen her in the paddock with Kimi.

Initially, she walked apart from him and he said, no, come on, come on over, and put his arm around her, and that’s what I think endeared this picture to many of you. And before I go on to my second most popular picture, which I’m sure will be a car picture, Kimi did tell me that this whale tail piece of jewelry around his neck is something he’s had for some time, got it at a beach, and on another matter, Lewis was wearing pearls as he often does.

Now my second most popular post oh, another woman post, Rebecca Donaldson and Carlos Sainz. Interesting story here that I followed them the whole length of the paddock where they were just chatting. And then when we got very close to the Williams Hospitality Suite, out of nowhere, Carlos just decided to do this. As many of you noted on that post, very rarely does Carlos provide a PDA, a public display of affection. And this was definitely out of character, but muchly appreciated from my side of things and certainly well appreciated from your side of things.

A couple of you saying, is there any video of it? Yes. I can’t shoot video. Obviously, I do my accreditation instantly if I video anyone but me. But, yes, Netflix were on the case, and I imagine they’ll use that scene next year. I spoke to Beck afterwards for about twenty minutes. We had a lovely chat. I said, what actually brought that about? She just said, oh, saw you there and thought, right. We’ll just do that out of the blue.

I’m actually going to do a video shortly about women and Formula One because as I’ve mentioned here, my top two posts featured women. That’s something that a small section of my following hates. I don’t know why. They don’t like it that women get this response on social media. Why are you putting that picture up? Don’t put pictures up of women. Clearly, that’s what you love.

Oh, and just harking back to Carlos’ public displays of affection, only other time I think I’ve seen it is in Canada, and I’ve also seen an example in Miami last year, if you discount a post-race kiss. Still on the subject of females in Formula One, J Lo at the track. Did you see the pictures of her? My gosh. I was sitting in the media center and somebody says, JLo’s in race control with Stefano Domenicali.

So we head down there and see what we can see, and she was actually at that stage in the Ferrari hospitality suite. I saw her come out, and I just had her head and shoulders shot as she walked out. And then as she became fully revealed, so to speak, I thought, wow, that’s an amazing outfit. We rarely see stuff like that, especially in Saudi where they’re a little bit conservative, obviously, and it’s bloody hot. She would have been so sweaty in that latex outfit because she’s known for wearing out their stuff. She is a performer. She was performing in Saudi, and according to your comments, the concert was excellent.

Security? Yeah. She had quite a bit of it, but they weren’t too overbearing and thankfully walked far enough off her that we could get shots like this. But how long did she stay? I’m figuring half an hour. She’s with Ferrari in their garage, she’s in Ferrari hospitality suite and with the F1 in the race control tower.

What about a story regarding a bloke? No. Another one about a woman, Helena Lewis, letting her hair down in the paddock at some stage over the weekend with the Netflix boom microphones she got a hold of. She had no idea I was shooting this. In fact, later on the weekend, I asked one of the Netflix audio guys where this woman was, right behind you, Kim.

And I looked at her and she came over and said, I saw you with a long lens, but I didn’t know you took the pictures. Well, I didn’t, but she was good natured about it. Oh, a story about a male now, Zhou Guanyu, with a very interesting camera setup here. Now I believe that vision was put up yesterday by Ferrari. It’s using an Insta 360 camera, which is a great bit of kit. I have one of those. But it looked funny when I was out there shooting this. I thought, I can’t wait to see that vision.

The pit boxes of all ten teams are seen from the top of the Golden Tower. As you can see, everyone is slightly different, similar angles coming in, and all of those pit boxes have a little marking there of where the wheels need to stop, and they show you whether you’re five, ten, fifteen, twenty centimeters out. But within reason, each team can do pretty much what they like with their pit box layout.

Were there any other celebrities at the track this weekend? I only saw Usher. That was it apart from J Lo. Typically not a huge race for celebrities, and mainly it’s just the performers who perform at the concert. I did notice this driver doing a little session with some people out on the balcony wearing just his socks. He was also the same fellow who took part in the post-race celebration. Just in his socks. And that driver in his socks? Lando Norris.

Valtteri Bottas was Mercedes’ reserve driver, but he left the track probably an hour before the race start. Why? Well, as a reserve driver, he can’t do anything. Pretty much past quali, he can’t do anything, cause you can’t take over a race seat if you haven’t qualified. But he’s with his girlfriend Tiffany Cromwell, a fellow Australian, from my same birth state, South Australia. And delightfully, she was handing out Easter eggs, and I got one.

Parc Ferme was held out on the track, and they’re not much fun for us photographers. Great for the spectators in the grandstands, but we get very few photos because it’s so hard to get a position. It’s also hard for Charles’ girlfriend to get his attention because she was stuck on the same side of the fence as I was down here, and he was some ten meters away.

There was a huge security presence yesterday, much bigger than normal, and we were told that MBS, the crown prince here in Saudi, would be coming to the race and had asked for seventy-five extra passes. That’s a lot. It turns out he didn’t come to the race, but there was certainly extra screening on Sunday morning, in preparation perhaps for an impending visit.

And this podium is different from every other one that we have. A, it’s in the middle of the paddock, and B, above that podium is another floor where all the McLaren crew were able to stand and watch the goings on. And I did ask the gentleman here on the left what that stuff was like to drink, and he said, sweet, fruity, sugary water. Of course, it’s not alcoholic because you can’t get alcohol in this country, but it just doesn’t spray like champagne.

Anyway, next race, we’re back to normal with Moet and Chandon on the podium. Now, I didn’t actually notice this at the time, but a friend of mine did. A video cameraman on the podium stood right above one of these pyrotechnics going off and had his whole back of his camera absolutely scorched. Now, I haven’t found that gentleman. I’d love to see what damage it did to the camera, if any, but my friend said it was spectacular, and all you can really see here is a shape. I imagine it caught him by surprise.

And afterwards, you might have seen the fireworks on TV. It was impressive. It was also loud, and it caught Esteban Ocon by surprise as he finished his media pen duties, as it did Alex Albon. Host raced down in the TV media pen. We had a very happy Carlos Sainz. He scored his first points for Williams. Alex Albon also scored points, so it was a double points finish for that team.

At the bottom end of the table, of course, we had an accident with Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda on the opening lap, ruled them out. Jack Doohan struggled. Lewis Hamilton also would have liked to have finished a lot higher. And the Saubers, well, they’re just destined to the rear of the field as it stands now.

What did the drivers drive to the track this weekend? It’s an interesting drive because you have to come over a bridge to get to the car park for the drivers, and it’s about four hundred meters from the paddock entrance along the main straight. Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, both driving Nissan Patrols, and you will find a lot of very big cars in this selection again. Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda in big cars. Ford Raptors, I had one of these last race, and I absolutely loved it. Ten gears, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were driving matching GLS four fifties.

Were both Aston Martin drivers in Aston Martins? No. Lance was, but Fernando was in a big Nissan Patrol. Jack Doohan and Pierre Gasly in Chevy Tahoes, these were from budget rental car. Esteban and Ollie in BMWs. Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar had Honda XRVs. Alex and Carlos followed the lead of the Mercedes drivers in Mercs four fifties. Nico Hulkenberg in an Audi Q8 and Gabrielle Bortoletto in the Q7. And the real stars of the show, two Ferraris. Beautiful two nine six GTBs for both Charles Leclerc with the blue on the back here and Lewis Hamilton in this darker color.

And finally, a couple of team principals, a Purosangue for Fred Vasseur, James Vowles, BMW X5, Mattia Binotto in an Audi A8, and Andreas Stella in a GMC Yukon. Now he wouldn’t have been driving that. A local, I imagine, drove that. But that car was left running for a goodly amount of time with no one in it, and I think they do that to keep the cabin cool. Do they have it running all day? I don’t know.

And there were two other drivers who had drivers in their car just sitting waiting for them all day with the engine on and the air conditioning running. But, of course, fuel is very cheap here because they make so much of it.

There is quite a remarkable marina at one end of the track. It’s just behind me here. And trust me when I say there are some lovely boats in here and none bigger than this one. Just over fifty meters. Lots of different entertainment areas and it’s been chartered by a company doing an amazing development out in the middle of the Red Sea. Don’t doubt that there’s a lot of money in this economy here, and the people who have chartered this boat only decided five days ago that it was a good idea to do so. And they turned on quite a show. I can promise you that.

This brings the first triple header of the year to an end, and I’m delighted to be going back to Australia before heading off to the next race in Miami.

FAQ

• What happened to Max Verstappen during the race?
  Max was handed a five-second penalty for gaining an unfair advantage after going off track at turn two.
• Who won the race?
  Oscar Piastri took victory, marking his third win of the season.
• How did the celebrities fare at the event?
  J Lo was spotted at the track, and there was a notable lack of other celebrities apart from Usher.
• What were the drivers’ cars like?
  Drivers were seen in a variety of large vehicles including Nissan Patrols and Ford Raptors.