Practice 1
Championship leader Max Verstappen set the fastest time of FP1 in Saudi Arabia ahead of his Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, while Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was third.
Despite the heat - heat that will dissipate under the lights for FP2, qualifying and the race - Red Bull and Aston Martin began the session with respective drivers Perez and Alonso donning soft tyres.
The pair traded places at the top of the leaderboard for much of the first 30 minutes of FP1 before Verstappen equipped softs and eventually set the fastest time of 1m 29.617s.
Perez was 0.438s behind his teammate in second place. The Mexican driver has a new control electronics, energy store and gearbox, but no penalty, this weekend. Alonso was another two tenths away in P3 for Aston Martin, with his teammate, Lance Stroll, fourth and just under a second off the pace.
Mercedes were next on the board with George Russell fifth and Lewis Hamilton sixth, both just over 1.1s off the pace. Friday marks 10 years since Hamilton made his Mercedes debut; here he remarked he was "struggling for grip" as he rounded the track on softs.
Carlos Sainz, who has a new internal combustion engine for the race, but no penalty, finished seventh ahead of Alpine's Pierre Gasly. Charles Leclerc finished 11th in the other Ferrari.
Leclerc, who retired from the season opener, has a 10-place grid penalty in Saudi Arabia, having exceeded. He will also have a new ICE and MGU-H for the Grand Prix.
In ninth was Alex Albon for Williams, while Yuki Tsunoda rounded out the top 10 for Alpha Tauri.
Esteban Ocon took P12 for Alpine ahead of Nyck de Vries in P13, while Oscar Piastri finished 14th for McLaren.
Haas were 15th and 16th with Nico Hulkenberg ahead of Kevin Magnussen, while Logan Sargeant was 17th for Williams.
Then sat Alfa Romeo with Valtteri Bottas 18th - 10 years after making his F1 Grand Prix debut - and Zhou Guanyu 19th.
Lando Norris was 20th on the board for McLaren. This weekend, Norris has a new exhaust, MGU-H, MGU-K turbocharger and internal combustion engine but no penalties as he has not exceeded any allocations.
Practice 2
Max Verstappen continued to set the pace in Jeddah, as the Red Bull driver topped the timesheets in the second practice session for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Verstappen placed ahead of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and his teammate Sergio Perez.
After the blazing hot on Friday afternoon, the drivers came out onto a much cooler track for FP2. With the sun having set, and the floodlights turned on - in what were much more representative conditions to those they will face in qualifying and in the race.
And it was Verstappen - who also topped the-who led the way in the customary FP2 qualifying simulation runs, setting a time of 1m 29.603s, with his nearest challenger, Alonso, 0.208s behind. Last year's pole-sitter, Perez, was third quickest, 0.299s behind his teammate.
It was a strong showing from Alpine on Friday, with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly finishing fourth and sixth respectively in the session, with the Mercedes of George Russell sandwiched between the French pair in P5.
Lance Stroll, in the sister Aston Martin, was seventh fastest, ahead of the Haas of Nico Hulkenberg and the Ferrari pair of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, in P9 and P10, respectively. With Leclerc, set to take a for Sunday's race, heard complaining of engine issues late in the session.
Lewis Hamilton - who won the first race in Jeddah back in 2021 - was 11th fastest after having his first run on the soft tyre impeded by yellow flags, ahead of his compatriot Lando Norris, in 12th, for McLaren.
Yuki Tsunoda was the quickest of the Alpha Tauri drivers, in 13th, ahead of the lead Williams of Alex Albon, the sister Haas of Kevin Magnussen, and the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu down in P16.
Tsunoda's teammate Nyck de Vries finished the session down in 17th, ahead of his fellow rookies Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri. Sargeant had to take avoiding action after nearly hitting the rear of Sainz, with Valtteri Bottas at the rear of the field for Alfa Romeo.
Practice 3
Max Verstappen set the fastest time in FP3 to lead his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez by over six tenths of a second - and the rest of the field by nearly a second. The championship leader swept all three practice sessions before qualifying in Saudi Arabia.
Verstappen, who led and on Friday, followed that up with another table-topping performance on Saturday afternoon, having equipped softs to set a lap of 1m 28.485s. The Dutchman improved steadily throughout the session, with the track gripping up from spent tyre rubber, and temperatures decreasing towards sunset.
Perez ended up 0.613s off the pace in P2, while Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso was third on the board - albeit 0.998s off the pace of Verstappen. He was the last driver within a second of the Dutchman, as Lance Stroll was 1.024s off the pace in P4.
Lewis Hamilton rounded out the top five for Mercedes, while his teammate George Russell took P11.
As for Ferrari, they left it late to set representative qualifying runs on soft tyres, with Charles Leclerc jumping to sixth overall and Carlos Sainz rounding out the top 10. Leclerc however has a 10-place grid penalty to contend with.
McLaren were seventh and eighth on the timesheets, with Lando Norris just 0.008s ahead of rookie teammate Oscar Piastri.
Alpine's Pierre Gasly was 0.003s behind Piastri in P9, ahead of Sainz and Russell.
Zhou Guanyu finished a tenth behind Russell as he took 12th for Alfa Romeo, while Nico Hulkenberg was next on the charts in P13 for Haas.
Esteban Ocon took 14th for Alpine, and in 15th and 16th were the two Williams, with Alex Albon ahead of Logan Sargeant.
Kevin Magnussen took P17 for Haas ahead of Valtteri Bottas, and the AlphaTauris rounded out the timesheets with Yuki Tsunoda 19th on medium compounds and Nyck de Vries 20th having failed to set a time due to a power unit issue.
Qualifying
Sergio Perez claimed pole position for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix during an action-packed qualifying session at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit after teammate and championship leader Max Verstappen dropped out in Q2 due to technical problems.
Verstappen was the firm favourite for pole position after leading the way in FP1, FP2, FP3 and the opening Q1 phase of qualifying. A driveshaft issue that struck in Q2 means he will start Sunday's race from 15th on the grid.
Perez picked up the pieces in Verstappen's absence, posting a 1m 28.265 in the decisive Q3 phase to claim a second successive pole in the Kingdom, 0.155s ahead of Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc, who will lose 10 places.
Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin therefore jump up to the front row as their strong start to the season continues, followed by the lead Mercedes of George Russell, Ferrari's Carlos Sainz and teammate Lance Stroll.
A much stronger qualifying performance from Alpine saw them place seventh and 10th with Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly respectively, with Lewis Hamilton taking eighth in his Mercedes, and rookie Oscar Piastri impressing en route to P9 in his McLaren.
Haas and Alfa Romeo were unable to make it over the second qualifying hurdle, with Nico Hulkenberg ending up 11th from Zhou Guanyu, Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas. Verstappen completed the list of drivers to drop out in Q2 amid his costly issues.
Alpha Tauri lost both of their cars in Q1, with Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck de Vries taking P16 and P18 respectively. The latter ruing a mistake at the final corner of his final lap after missing FP3 due to a power unit change.
Alex Albon was the lead Williams in 17th, splitting up the two AlphaTauris, while Lando Norris was the biggest name to drop out in Q1 after hitting the Turn 27 wall and picking up steering damage that could not be fixed.
It was a messy second F1 qualifying session for Logan Sargeant. He lost his first lap for exceeding track limits, spun out during his second effort, and finally encountered a technical problem on his final attempt - leaving him at the back of the grid without a time.
Q1
As the action got going in Q1, there was some early drama when De Vries's car snapped away from him under braking for Turn 1 on his opening lap, ruining a set of soft tyres and adding to the Dutchman's woes .
It was a much smoother start for fellow countryman Verstappen, who immediately stated his intentions by clocking a rapid 1m 28.761s during his first run, putting him in P1 by exactly half a second over the sister Red Bull of Perez.
After De Vries's wild spin, there were similar problems for Norris, who clipped the wall at the final corner and reported steering damage, and Alonso, who lit up the rears exiting the first chicane and did a 360 - forcing him to back out and go again.
Moments later, Sargeant had the biggest moment of Q1 when he spun at the high-speed Turn 22/23 and stopped perilously close to the barriers, leaving him in a rush to post a lap time after also losing his first effort due to track limits.
As the second phase of runs played out amid sporadic yellow flags, Red Bull maintained their one-two position, ahead of the Aston Martins, Ferraris, Hulkenberg's Haas and the two Mercedes drivers, who were split by Zhou's Alfa Romeo.
McLaren experienced mixed fortunes in Q1 as rookie Piastri placed 11th and made it through to Q2, placing ahead of Ocon, Magnussen, Gasly and Bottas, but team mate Norris fell at the first hurdle due to his aforementioned incident.
As expected from their Friday practice form, AlphaTauri lost both cars in the initial phase, Tsunoda placing 16th and De Vries dropping out in 18th after a messy end to his final lap, with the Williams of Albon slotting between them.
Norris wound up 19th amid his Q1 drama, with Sargeant bringing up the rear - the only driver without a time - after his deleted lap and spin were followed by an abandoned final attempt when the American reported that "something's broken".
Knocked out: Tsunoda, Albon, De Vries, Norris, Sargeant
Q2
When the green light switched back on at the end of the pit lane for the start of Q2, it was Alonso who made the first move and stormed to the top of the timesheets with a 1m 28.757s - marginally quicker than the time posted by Q1 pace-setter Verstappen.
Then, just as Verstappen was winding up for his first run, disaster struck for the reigning world champion who - shortly after surviving a "big moment" through the first sector - reported an engine problem over the radio.
Verstappen limped back to the pits in a bid to rescue the situation, but with only half a dozen minutes on the clock, there was little his mechanics can do - meaning he hopped out of the cockpit, and out of Q2, down in 15th position.
Amid a flurry of late runs, Perez took over at the top with a 1m 28.635s, moving just over a tenth clear of Alonso, followed by the Ferraris, the other Aston Martin of Stroll and Mercedes pair Russell and Hamilton, separated by Ocon's Alpine.
Piastri and Gasly were the other two drivers to progress to Q3, meaning the two Alfa Romeos (of Zhou and Bottas) and two Haas machines (of Hulkenberg and Magnussen) joined the frustrated Verstappen as Q2 eliminees.
Knocked out: Hulkenberg, Zhou, Magnussen, Bottas, Verstappen
Q3
When the pole position shootout began, without expected favourite Verstappen, the opening phase of runs were topped by Perez, who clocked a 1m 28.265s aboard his RB19 - half a second clear of Leclerc's Ferrari, Russell's Mercedes and Alonso's Aston Martin.
There was a close call as the various run plans converged, with Sainz encountering Russell at the pit exit and losing some momentum, but the pair managed to avoid contact and the 10 drivers involved in Q3 were all able to make it to the chequered flag.
Leclerc was one of the big improvers on his second run to pip Alonso to P2, albeit with the side note that he will drop 10 grid places due to his pre-weekend engine change - but nobody could challenge Perez, meaning he was able to abandon his final lap.
Alonso placed third with another strong outing in his Aston Martin but will be the first beneficiary of Leclerc's drop from P2 to P12, joining Perez on the front row and setting up a tantalising run down to Turn 1 on Sunday.
Russell was next up in fourth, ahead of Sainz, Stroll, Ocon and team mate Hamilton, with Piastri and Gasly rounding out the top 10 positions - all of them gaining a spot on the grid when Leclerc's penalty kicks in.
Race
Sergio Perez converted pole position into victory at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as team mate Max Verstappen recovered from P15 to make it successive one-two finishes for Red Bull. Fernando Alonso put his Aston Martin on the podium again with a fine drive, before being stripped of P3 and then having it reinstated after a stewards' review.
Perez overcame an attack from Alonso at the start, a nervy Safety Car period and Verstappen's charge from the midfield to make up for the potential win he lost at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit a year ago - kick-starting his 2023 championship hopes in the process.
Verstappen progressed to P2 in rapid time though ultimately had to accept defeat to Perez, with the reigning world champion managing additional driveshaft concerns late in the race after the same component failed during qualifying.
Alonso impressively took the lead from Perez into Turn 1 but a subsequent time penalty for lining up outside his grid box, coupled with the relentless pace of the Red Bulls, meant he had to settle for third place.
Alonso's rear jack mechanic was later judged to have touched the car before his penalty had been served, the Spaniard receiving a further 10-second penalty after the race that dropped him to P4. Upon reviewing the decision, however, the stewards ruled that Alonso's P3 would stand, reversing their call and pushing Mercedes's George Russell back to P4 - Alonso becoming just the sixth driver to earn 100 F1 podiums.
Mercedes and Ferrari had no answers for Red Bull's pace as they distantly followed in two-by-two formation, Russell getting the better of team mate Lewis Hamilton, and Carlos Sainz leading Charles Leclerc home.
Leclerc was also tasked with a race day recovery after his pre-race grid penalty, but seventh represented a much smaller reward than Verstappen's second-place finish, and the Monegasque could not contain his frustration over the radio.
Alpine enjoyed a much stronger second round as Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly collected points in P8 and P9 respectively, while Haas's Kevin Magnussen and AlphaTauri's Yuki Tsunoda went wheel-to-wheel over the final point - the Dane coming out on top with a late move.
Nico Hulkenberg took 12th in the sister Haas, as the Alfa Romeo of Zhou Guanyu beat rookie drivers Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri), Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Logan Sargeant (Williams) to P13.
McLaren endured another tough day at the office after early front wing changes for Piastri, who clashed with Gasly at the start, and Lando Norris, who hit the debris, consigned them to evenings towards the back of the pack.
Piastri ultimately crossed the line in P15 after clearing Sargeant on the final lap, something Norris narrowly avoided repeating as he settled for 17th, with Valtteri Bottas the last of the finishers amid apparent technical trouble in his Alfa Romeo.
Alex Albon and Lance Stroll were the two retirements from the race; Albon encountering terminal brake problems aboard his Williams and Stroll being told to stop his Aston Martin in the early stages, taking him out of the front-running battle.
Attention now turns to the third round of the 2023 F1 season in Australia, with Verstappen holding the championship lead over Perez by a point thanks to him clocking the fastest lap of the race in the dying moments.
A dramatic qualifying session set up an intriguing grid for Sunday's race under the lights as pole position favourite Verstappen dropped out at the Q2 stage due to a driveshaft failure, meaning the Dutchman would need to charge his way through the field in his repaired RB19.
There was some further drama when he left the pit lane to take up his P15 grid slot, with brake fluid leaking into the cockpit, but mechanics were quick to make adjustments and Verstappen set about trying to emulate his recovery from 14th to victory at Spa-Francorchamps last season.
Another driver out of place was Leclerc, who fell from P2 to P12 on the grid amid further power unit changes at Ferrari, meaning not one but two drivers lining up well out of position and an already tantalising pre-race dynamic being given another exciting layer.
When the grid formed up and the lights went out - with most drivers opting for medium tyres - Alonso sent the crowd wild as he bolted off the line to snatch the lead from Perez into Turn 1, with Russell slotting into P3 ahead of Stroll and Sainz.
However, just moments later, an incident involving Alonso - specifically an "incorrect starting location" - was noted by the stewards and a five-second penalty went the Aston Martin driver's way, as replays showed him stopping to the left of his grid box.
While news of the sanction came through, Alonso had his mirrors full of Perez's Red Bull and, as soon as the DRS overtaking aid was activated, Perez reclaimed the position down the main straight - surviving a lock-up under braking for the first corner.
Behind, there was double drama for McLaren as both their drivers pitted for front wing changes; Piastri having damaged his in contact with Gasly in the squeeze at the exit of the first chicane; and Norris damaging his when he ran over the debris.
As for Leclerc and Verstappen, the pair had climbed to P9 and P11 respectively by Lap 5 of 50, with the Ferrari driver's bold choice of soft starting tyres working particularly well as he picked off a train of slower cars ahead.
Leclerc faced a tougher challenge when he reached the back of Hamilton's Mercedes, but found a way past with DRS shortly after the seven-time world champion was shown a black and white flag for weaving down the straights.
That meant the order on Lap 10 was as follows: Perez from Alonso, who had brushed off his penalty and was doing his best to cling to the back of the lead RB19, followed by Russell, Stroll, Sainz, Ocon, Leclerc, Hamilton, Gasly and Verstappen.
Having jumped the first hurdle of breaking into the points, Verstappen cleared Gasly to make it P9, before giving us brief memories of his titanic scrap with Hamilton here in 2021 to climb to P8 - albeit this time without any drama to report.
Zhou, Hulkenberg and Bottas kicked off the pit stop action on Lap 12, with Stroll the first of the front-runners to box two laps later, but Perez, Alonso, Russell, Sainz and the soft-shod Leclerc all extended their opening stints.
That strategic move initially paid off for Ferrari when Sainz pitted on Lap 16, and Leclerc a lap later, with both drivers getting the jump on Stroll as they rejoined the action - the Canadian's evening then ending dramatically when he was told to stop his car on track.
But after a Virtual Safety Car, the full Safety Car was deployed, bringing the rest of the front-runners into the pit lane, where Red Bull and Mercedes carried out double-stack stops to ensure neither of their respective drivers were compromised - Leclerc and Sainz losing out.
As the cars filtered back out on track, Perez held P1 from Alonso and Russell, avoiding his Safety Car nightmare from last year, while Verstappen emerged in P4 as a big winner, completing a cheap stop after his overtaking-filled first stint.
Ferrari duo Sainz and Leclerc now had the Mercedes of Hamilton between them, as Tsunoda - another to benefit from the timing of the Safety Car - Ocon and Gasly rounded out the points-paying positions.
Most of the field switched to hard tyres for a near 30-lap run to the chequered flag, aside from Hamilton, Sargeant (P15), Zhou (P17), Bottas (P18) and Norris (P19), who had all taken on a set of the medium tyres.
When the Safety Car peeled in on Lap 21, Perez mastered the restart to hold P1 and lead the way, with the rest of the top 10 also initially holding position - despite some close racing between Ocon and Gasly through the first chicane.
One lap later, Hamilton made a move on Sainz for P5 by getting in the slipstream down the main straight and capitalising on a compromised exit from Turn 1 for the Spaniard, while the other Mercedes of Russell came under attack from Verstappen.
When DRS kicked in again, Russell had no hope as Verstappen hit the button and breezed past on the run to the final corner, meaning he was now into the podium positions behind Alonso - who had just radioed to say "I like this tyre" - and leader Perez.
Verstappen almost repeated the trick on Alonso a lap later, but this time waited until the main straight to jump up to P2, with all eyes now on the Red Bull pit wall and how they would manage their two cars converging up front.
In clean air, Verstappen duly pumped in a new fastest lap, some half a second quicker than Perez, slashing the gap between them to 5.4 seconds, as Alonso drifted away in third and waited to pounce on any potential drama.
Further back, Albon issued an alarming radio message as he reported a brake failure, forcing him to dramatically cut his speed and cruise back to the Williams garage, where he would join Stroll on the list of retirements.
Before a potential Red Bull run-in, the Mercedes drivers embarked on their own intra-team battle for P4, with Hamilton and his medium tyres proving quicker than the combination of Russell and his set of hards.
Russell radioed Mercedes to suggest that he and Hamilton should avoid fighting over position, pointing to Alonso's five-second penalty, and when his race engineer informed him that it had already been served, he replied: "Argh, again info I need!"
In the meantime, Perez found another level of pace to respond to Verstappen's charge and stabilise the lead gap at just over five seconds, with a similar margin back to Alonso in third, followed by the Mercedes cars, the Ferraris and the Alpines.
Stuck in seventh and with a podium well out of sight, Leclerc lit up the airwaves to express his frustration at Ferrari's lack of pace, declaring: "Being behind like this is really ****. I don't know what to do."
There were some late worries for Verstappen as he reported an unusual feeling from the driveshaft, then made clear that "something is wrong", while Perez expressed his own concerns about a long brake pedal.
The scares were nothing more than that, however, as Perez and Verstappen - trading fastest lap times amid some confused radio messages from the Mexican about whether they were both still pushing - made it to the flag and backed up their performance at the season opener with another one-two result, as Alonso joined them on the podium again in his Aston Martin.
However, Alonso and Aston Martin were investigated post-race for serving their penalty incorrectly due to the rear jack mechanic starting his work too early, resulting in a 10-second time addition and dropping them from P3 to P4 - briefly promoting Russell to the podium as a result.
But following a Right of Review from Aston Martin, the stewards would reverse their decision, meaning that - after a 10-year wait for a rostrum appearance - Alonso appeared on consecutive podiums. He also became just the sixth driver - behind Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel, Alain Prost and Kimi Raikkonen - to take 100 podiums in F1 history.
With Russell back to P4, Hamilton took fifth, ahead of the Ferraris of Sainz and Leclerc, while Ocon, Gasly and Magnussen completed the points-paying positions, the latter grabbing his reward with a DRS-assisted move on Tsunoda on Lap 47.
Hulkenberg, Zhou, De Vries, Piastri, Sargeant and Norris followed in a close midfield group, with Bottas a lapped 18th and the last of the finishers after a late extra stop, as Albon and Stroll watched from the sidelines thanks to their earlier technical issues.
Key Quotes
"It turned out to be tougher than expected. That Safety Car... we really did a job in the first stint, but that Safety Car again tried to take the victory from us in Jeddah - but not this time! I was owed a victory last year, so finally I got it," said race winner Perez.
"The team did a fantastic job. The job they've done, they've worked so hard during the week, we've had a lot of mechanical issues and these guys have been on top of that. I'm really happy for them and it's time to celebrate."
Standings
1 Sergio Perez
2 Max Verstappen
3 Fernando Alonso
4 George Russell
5 Lewis Hamilton