ANALYSIS: Leclerc delivers standout performance with another offset strategy

Having grabbed Ferrari's first podium finish of the 2025 F1 season, Charles Leclerc delivered a brilliant performance with a bold offset strategy to take his 44th podium finish.

Max Verstappen started from pole position after having delivered an eye-catching performance in Saturday’s qualifying session. The Dutchman launched off the line well, but so did Oscar Piastri, and the pair went wheel-to-wheel into the first corner before Verstappen cut across the apex.

The reigning champion managed to hold on to the lead, but the stewards judged that he left the track and gained a lasting advantage by taking to the run-off area on the outside of the first corner. The Dutchman received a five-second penalty for his manoeuvre.

The Dutchman led until the pit stops, serving that penalty costing him a place to Piastri. From there, he couldn’t get close enough to put Piastri under any significant pressure. However, considering McLaren’s pace advantage across the practice session, it was a brilliant effort from Verstappen to finish just 2.8 seconds behind the Aussie despite his five-second time penalty.

Charles Leclerc was third for Ferrari, scoring his 44th career podium after a scintillating drive at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

As for the strategy, the Jeddah race did not bring any major surprises. Although Pirelli went a step softer for this year's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in the hope of spicing the strategies up, it was still not enough to break the dominance of one-stop strategies.

The white-walled Hard compound was so durable that Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto was able to cover 48 laps of the 50-lap race on the same set while the mediums proved extremely durable as well, with Leclerc covering 58 perc cent of the race distance on the same set of yellow-banded tyres he started the race on.

There were few surprises on the grid, with just four drivers - Lando Norris, Lance Stroll, Isack Hadjar and Nico Hulkenberg - choosing to run the Hard for the first stint with the other 16 all going for the Medium.

With Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly suffering a collision on the first lap, the safety car was deployed. Three drivers immediately took advantage of the interruption, with Jack Doohan, Esteban Ocon and Gabriel Bortoleto electing to switch to the Hard.

The strategies chosen matched Pirelli's pre-race expectations, both in terms of the number of stops and the timing of the pit stop windows.

Of the top teams, the only ones that tried something different were Leclerc, who went on his first stint on Mediums until Lap 29, while Norris who started on the Hard, pitted on Lap 34.

In terms of stint length, the longest stint on the medium was completed by Leclerc (29 laps) while Ocon went the longest on the mediums (49 laps).

Commenting on the race, Pirelli's motorsport director Mario Isola said: “This Grand Prix matched our pre-race expectations in terms of tyre performance and the way the strategies worked.

"Despite bringing a softer trio of compounds compared to last year, and with track temperatures on average 7 °C higher, degradation on the C3 and C4 was very minimal. It meant that, given how evenly matched are the teams, the way the race played out was the natural outcome.

“We only saw a few cases of blistering on the left front, but not enough to impact tyre performance in a significant way. As for overheating, some cars struggled a bit, but it was to be expected with these temperatures and on a track where the tyres never get a chance to “breathe”.

Ahead of the first US race in 2025, Isola offered his expectation: “Now we have the first chance to catch our breath before heading for another continent, as we prepare to race in the USA for the first time this season, in Miami.

"At a track with very different characteristics to this one, we will have the same selection of dry tyre compounds as were used here in Jeddah, and yet again that will be a step softer than last year’s race. It will be interesting to see how the teams deal with that, especially as it will be the second Sprint weekend of the year.”