F1 Academy: Ferrari-backed Maya Weug secures victory in Jeddah and takes over championship lead

Having grabbed her first victory of the season, Ferrari driver Maya Weug claimed that she is eager to deliver a more consistent performance in qualifying which proved her weakness in Jeddah.

Ferrari-backed Maya Weug scored her first win of the season in the second race in Jeddah. The Dutch driver crossed the line in second place, but was promoted to first because pole-sitter and first past the chequered flag, Red Bull-backed Chloe Chambers was given a five second penalty for a collision between the two drivers in the early part of the race.

However, the American limited the damage with a great final lap in which she clinched the additional point for the race fastest lap, as well as just finishing second by 65 thousandths of a second ahead of Mercedes-backed Doriane Pin, who was classified third.

The three girls also head the championship standings after the opening two rounds: Weug moves into the lead on 59 points, with Pin second on 52 and Chambers third with 47.

Commenting on her race weekend in Saudi Arabia, Weug noted: “Last year (the win) was in the last race, so it feels good to have it already on the second weekend of the season.

"The car was feeling great all weekend, just some small mistakes — well I wouldn’t say mistakes. It was just a bit messy in Quali, which cost us starting further forward.

“Yesterday was really good from P6 to P2. Today, again the pace was really nice in the first couple of laps and managed to make up the place on Doriane in Turn 1. After that, caught up to Chloe, overtook her, had a small touch here and there and then had to do the job again.

“Having to overtake again left my tyres a bit more destroyed than I would have liked in the end, but I knew Chloe had the five-seconds. Then I could just stay calm, try to get the fastest lap. It didn’t quite work out because I was struggling in the last couple of laps, but really good pace and looking strong for Miami.”

Reflecting on the multi-lap battle with Chambers, Weug remarked: “The first laps were quite insane. Last year the races were not so exciting around here, but this year they have been really cool. I got the move into Turn 1, then I was defending into Turn 4 and washed out a little bit, I locked the front and bounced a bit off the kerb.

“Anyways, I was still side-by-side into Turn 7. I was on the inside for Turn 7 and then that became the outside for Turn 8. There I just had no space really to stay on track and got run off, which then allowed Doriane to get through.”

With Weug now sitting top of the Drivers’ Standings for the first time in her F1 Academy career, the Dutch racer claims that she does not need to change much on her run plan, but she needs to make sure that she can extract everything from the car in qualifying.

“I don’t think we have to change much, we just have to keep working. We have two Free Practice sessions if it’s like last year, so we have to make sure we get a good run plan in Free Practice, show our pace in Quali and make some moves like we’ve been doing this weekend in Race 1.”