The second Grand Prix of the 2023 Formula One season took place on Sunday, March 19th, at the Corniche Circuit F1 street circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with Red Bull's Sergio Perez taking the checkers at the end of the 50 lap race on the shores of the Red Sea.

Perez's teammate, two time World Champion Max Verstappen, finished second after starting 15th on the grid due to a drive shaft issue in the Saturday qualifying session.

Red Bull also had a 1-2 finish two weeks ago in Bahrain.

"Max had a mountain to climb, overcoming a significant deficit, but with over half the race to go, was already in P4," said Team Principal, Christian Horner. "Similarly, Checo turned in an equally outstanding performance, perhaps the best drive I have ever seen from him."

The win was the fifth for the native-Mexican driver Perez and the 28th podium position of his F1 career.

F1 veteran and two time World Champion, Fernando Alonso, brought his Aston Martin AMR23 into third place to round out the podium positions. Alonso also finished third in the previous F1 Grand Prix in Bahrain. The Spaniard started outside the pole Sunday in Jeddah.

"It is very satisfying to score our second podium of the year with Fernando here in Jeddah," said Mike Krack, Aston Martin Team Principal. "It is Fernando's 100th career podium, which is a very impressive milestone. The car has been competitive throughout the weekend and we showed strong race pace once again tonight."

The Silver Arrows of Mercedes Racing showed some speed this weekend in Jeddah with George Russell and Lewis Hamilton finishing fourth and fifth, respectively.

Hamilton used a strong performance to overcome an eighth place starting grid position.

"Today was positive and we'd rather take a small trophy home than none. I think we saw some performance gains to Bahrain which is encouraging. It shows us that the development trajectory is going in the right direction," said Toto Wolff, Mercedes Team Principal & CEO.

"I think both of our drivers under our guidance probably over-managed their tyres a bit, and we had a little more pace," added Wolff.

The Ferrari's of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished sixth and seventh, respectively.

Leclerc qualified in P2 but was dropped to start in the 12th position due to a component replacement. Sainz qualified fifth.

"Overall, we can't be satisfied with today's result. We did not have the pace we were expecting from our car, especially on the Hard tyre. There was also a big gap in our performance level between qualifying and the race," said Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari Team Principal.

The Alpine's of Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly had a respectable weekend, finishing eighth and ninth respectively.

"Today's race highlighted many things: areas where we know there are positives and other areas where we need to improve." said Otmar Szafnauer, Alpine Team Principal, "Finishing with Esteban in eighth and Pierre in ninth was probably the best we could achieve today and we're making steps in the right direction towards our targets."

"We're not where we want to be right now, that is clear, and we have a lot of hard work ahead of us if we're to take the fight further up the grid. We've reeled in some of the teams who were in front of us in the championship last year and we must continue to chip away at that gap and close it," added Szafnauer.

Haas Racing's driver, Kevin Magnussen, secured the team a point by rounding out the top 10.

Pos	Driver		Team		Laps	Gap



1	Perez		Red Bull	50	1h 21:14.894
2	Verstappen	Red Bull	50	+ 0:05.355
3	Alonso		Aston Martin	50	+ 0:20.728
4	Russell		Mercedes	50	+ 0:25.866
5	Hamilton	Mercedes	50	+ 0:31.065
6	Sainz		Ferrari		50	+ 0:35.876
7	Leclerc		Ferrari		50	+ 0:43.162
8	Ocon		Alpine		50	+ 0:52.832
9	Gasly		Alpine		50	+ 0:54.747
10	Magnussen	Haas		50	+ 1:04.826
11	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	50	+ 1:07.494
12	Hulkenberg	Haas		50	+ 1:10.588
13	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	50	+ 1:16.060
14	de Vries	AlphaTauri	50	+ 1:17.478
15	Piastri		McLaren		50	+ 1:25.021
16	Sargeant	Williams	50	+ 1:26.293
17	Norris		McLaren		50	+ 1:26.445
18	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	49	+ 1 Lap
	Albon		Williams	27	Brakes
	Stroll		Aston Martin	16	Energy Recovery

(images provided by Aston Martin F1 Media & Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake))