ANALYSIS: What led to the first-corner melee between Verstappen and Piastri in Jeddah?

Max Verstappen secured his 44th pole position with a scintillating lap in last Saturday's Jeddah qualifying, but a suboptimal start saw the reigning champion lose the lead to McLaren's Oscar Piastri. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo explains what has led to the first-corner incident between the Dutch and the Australian driver.

Max Verstappen started from the pole position after having delivered an eye-catching performance in Satuday's qualifying session. However, 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.

In fact, Verstappen's start was not bad, but it was rather average considering the entire field. The Dutch driver had a worse reaction time to Piastri, and as a result of it, he reached 100kph in 3.1 while Piastri only needed 2.9s. The reason for that was that the Melbourne-born driver could use more throttle while his Dutch rival suffered from wheel spin.

The two drivers required exactly the same time from accelerating from 100kph to 200kph, with both reaching 200kph in 2.3seconds. However, Piastri managed to maintain the advantage the advantage until the first corner he gained across the first 100m of the acceleration, that is why the Aussie managed to arrive slightly earlier to the first corner while Verstappen was left on the outside.

The telemetry data provided by F1DataAnalysis shows Piastri needed 5.2 seconds to reach 200kph while Verstappen required 0.2s more, and this tiny deficit was enough for the Aussie to get slightly ahead of the Dutch driver. The data also shows that the reigning champion braked slightly later that is why he was unable to stay on track in the first corner.

The Red Bull camp had a different opinion regarding the incident, suggesting that the Dutchman could have won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix without the penalty.

Speaking to Sky Germany, Red Bull motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko was left to rue the start: “I think the race was lost at the start. And really, where was Max supposed to go? We watched the Formula 2 races, and the same thing happened to two or three drivers. They were only given warnings.

"So in our view, the five-second penalty was a bit harsh…the inconsistency in stewarding is difficult to understand. Piastri was ahead at the start, but at the very last braking zone, Max was slightly ahead again,” he continued. “But it is what it is.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner also offered his opinion, claiming that he considered the five-second time penalty as a very harsh decision from the stewards.

"Firstly, congrats to Oscar on the win. Arguably without that penalty we would have won today, so there are a lot of positives to take, a lot of lessons and we know where we have to improve.

"We believed Max was clearly ahead on the first lap and it was a very harsh decision but at that point it was best to concede, serve the penalty, get your head down and keep going. What was a great shame today was that you can see our pace was very similar to the McLaren and after the first stint on the medium we were in good shape.

"We pulled a gap to Oscar on the first stint and the pace was really there for Max, he was getting the most out of the car, let’s not forget on Friday McLaren had 1.2 seconds on everybody.

Pushed on to comment on his incident with Piastri at the start of the race, Verstappen refused to give his real opinion.

"Start happened, Turn 1 happened, and suddenly it was lap 50. It just all went super-fast. The problem is that I cannot share my opinion about it because I might get penalised also, so it's better not to speak about it."

Piastri was around 2-tenths quicker to 200km/h than Verstappen at the start, getting the lead!

1)Could use more throttle after the clutch release, gaining a ~10km/h advantage
2)Maintained that advantage, gaining more meters
3)VER lifted later (in time), going wide

Best starters: ALO, both Haas drivers, BOR. STR was quick on Hards!
Worst: LEC, HAD, LAW, SAI

VER’s speed profile is flat after each upshift, but that seems to be an issue in his telemetry and not a real phenomenon (notice how quickly his speed catches up right afterwards)

He upshifted at similar rpm as NOR, but later in time as his speed was lower