Windsor surprised by Red Bull and Verstappen: 'Not over by any means'

Peter Windsor, F1 analyst, saw Oscar Piastri take the win in Jeddah ahead of Max Verstappen, but stresses he was surprised by Red Bull and notes that for the Austrian team the championship is anything but over.

Nevertheless, it was still P2 for Verstappen at the flag. "I think, [Verstappen] was resigned by the end of the race with that five-second penalty served," Windsor says in his Youtube channel.

However, given the form the inconsistent form the team's shown this year, to come so close to winning their second Grand Prix of the season in Jeddah, is a good sign, Windsor notes.

"There were some very good things to come out of this weekend. He got the pole, he finished second, not far away from McLaren's pace. I thought actually Red Bull would be in more trouble when it came to the last third of both stints on, first of all on the mediums and then on the hard tyre."

"But the Red Bull was very good on tyres, even though he was relatively close to Oscar (Piastri, ed.) and in traffic quite a lot in the back half of the race. So that's a very good thing for Red Bull. They've done an excellent job on the development of that car, if that's the right word, over the last two weeks."

'Verstappen and Red Bull not out of the F1 championship fight'

After next week's Miami Grand Prix, the European leg of the season starts at Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, where Red Bull are set to introduce a comprehensive development/solutions package designed to address the intrinsec issues of the RB21.

"Now they go back to Europe, the end of this triple header, obviously with more upgrades to come for that car. So it's not over yet by any means and Red Bull and Max can go away thinking: 'yeah, P2, it would have been close had we not had that five second penalty."

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Windsor thinks 'Oscar would have done it' in Jeddah if Verstappen had given back P1

The race lead, was ultimately not gained during an on track battle between both leaders, but rather due to a penalty Verstappen received from the Stewards for 'leaving the track and gaining an advantage'. The alternative, however, giving the position back to avoid the penalty, would have yielded the same results according to the Australian analyst.

"It would be interesting to think about how that race would have gone. Assuming they hadn't had some sort of drama, collision or whatever, I think Oscar would still have done it. I think he had the better car but having that, he's slightly more prone to mistakes than Max. So it would have been very, very close."