Andrew Benson
BBC Sport’s chief F1 writer

Image source, Getty Images

Sergio Perez held off team-mate Max Verstappen to take a Red Bull one-two in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Verstappen fought up from 15th on the grid to fourth place before a safety car closed up the field and brought him into contention for victory.

But after passing Mercedes' George Russell and Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso, Verstappen could not catch Perez and had to settle for second.

Alonso finished third but took a post-race penalty dropping him to fourth.

The Spaniard was penalised five seconds for not being correctly in his grid slot at the start of the race.

He served it in his pit stop, but it was adjudged that the team had broken the rules by touching the car before the five seconds had elapsed and he was given a 10-second penalty as a result, promoting Russell to third.

Read the full race report here

Image source, Getty Images

Sergio Perez picks up the gold trophy from pole position at the second attempt in Saudi Arabian.

Max Verstappen leads the drivers' championship on 44 points thanks to picking up the extra point for fastest lap but he only has a one-point buffer from Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.

Fernando Alonso will get another chance to claim his 100th F1 podium for real when we head to Melbourne in two weeks' time.

Join us again for coverage of first and second practice at the Australian Grand Prix, Friday, 31 March.

Set your alarm for 02:00 BST for that one. Gulp.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. See you soon!

George Russell, who finishes third after Fernando Alonso gets a 10-second penalty, speaking to Sky Sports: "It was an interesting race. After the safety car, I was on the hard tyre, Lewis on medium. He had some pace in the beginning. I knew my pace was coming at the end.

"There was some confusion. I thought Fernando had a five-second penalty. I didn’t want us to be fighting with one another and we both lose out. I wanted us to manage the tyres and have a fair battle towards the end.

"The penalty on Fernando was harsh. They are deserving podium finishers today but I'll take an extra trophy. I'm not complaining.

"You got to give credit to what Red Bull have done. The gap is bigger since Mercedes in 2014. It’s a serious gap and everyone needs to work harder to close the gap. We've made the right decision over the winter and we can regain the pace quicker

"We want to win races and fight for the Championship hunt. We've got to be realistic, we'll focus on ourselves and get the fundamentals right."

Fernando Alonso talking to Sky Sports after his penalty: "It was good it doesn’t hurt much. I was on the podium, I took the pictures, I got the trophy I celebrated with the champagne. Now I have three points less I don’t have 15 I have 12.

"I think its more of a FIA poor show today more than disappointment for ourselves.

You can't apply the penalty 35 laps after the pit stop. They had enough time to inform us. If I knew about the penalty I would have had 11 seconds with the car behind.

"They told me about the first 5 second pen and I left 7 or 8 seconds behind me. in the second there was no information at all not even an investigation"

"I care but I don’t care that much."

Aston Martin boss Mike Krack told Sky Sports following Alonso's penalty: "First of all we need to look at the videos what happened exactly so right now I can not really say how this is going to go.

"The regulation said you may not work on the car, it's maybe a little bit ambiguous but this is something we need to look at, we have a clear procedure for it, a countdown, and everything was fully safe. No advantage came from it so let's see how this develops."

The two McLarens were the first to enter the pits just after the opening laps. The safety car period around lap 18 was obviously the popular choice to dive in for a change.

Image source, Pirelli Motorsport Twitter

Lewis Hamilton who finished fifth, talking to Sky Sports: "We got some great points as a team, George got third, which is amazing. I went forward, one foot in front of the other. I'm really grateful to have come from seventh place.

"The strategy didn't work for me, the set up was a bit off. If I had George's set up I would be in a better position. There's lots to work on, but we can take the positives.

"We work on the set up. It was a 50-50 choice. I chose one way, he chose another. I could only match his pace rather than be quicker this weekend. I'll work hard to make sure we're in a better place next week.

Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff, speaking to Sky Sports, on his team's performance: "I think we would rather take one of those golden trophies than none but I think we are seeing some performance gains compared to Bahrain, which is nice and encouraging.

"It shows us that the development trajectory is going in the right direction, but on the flip side, hopefully we can race for wins soon. I think both of the drivers and our guidance we probably over managed the tyres a little bit.

"The question is what is your benchmark, if you look at the Red Bulls they are just so quick that I think we understand the car more, it's what I meant when I said I was looking optimistic for the future. We are changing the body work of the car, the floor work, all these things mechanically we are looking at certain areas.

"We are making big elephant steps at the moment going forward but it's going to be a long time until they are adequate to challenge Red Bull, but it's a super fun journey to climb back."

Nice moment between George Russell and Fernando Alonso in the media pen, as the Mercedes man goes off to the Aston Martin driver to say 'hard lines, mate'.

That 100th podium won't be too far down the road for Alonso judging by the pace of the AMR23 in the two-time world champion's hands.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner said post-race: "The team all credit to them, they've built an incredible car. What we saw today, the two drivers pushing each other, Max coming through from 15th on the grid by half distance, he was already in P4.

"Checo, I think personally that was his best ever race, managing the pace, the restart. The pace that he had and those guys were going absolutely flat out until we thought we had an issue with Max."

On letting Perez and Verstappen race each other, he added:" We've got a great car and two great drivers. We talked about it in the briefing earlier, that you are free to race but keep it clean."

McLaren boss Zak Brown has tweeted his thoughts about today's 50-lap race in Jedda. Another grand prix that leaves the team with zero points on the board.

"Tough race after an unlucky start with damage to both cars on the opening lap," said Brown.

"Made it too difficult to turn things around. But we tried hard. Oscar P15, Lando P17. Time to get our season back on track in Australia."

George Russell says "he is not complaining too much" about taking that podium spot from Fernando Alonso. He can spray a mini bottle of champagne in the motorhome later.

The 100th podium will have to wait for Fernando Alonso, but here's what the Aston Martin driver had to say straight after the race, before the 10-second penalty was handed out by the stewards: "What a start to the season, probably unthinkable, one month since we launched the car but these guys have made a fantastic car, a fantastic execution of the race here and in Bahrain with the strategy and now two podiums.

“A hard grand prix but these guys give me power and I push all the way through and in qualifying laps. The Red Bull’s are a bit out of reach but the rest were behind so I’m happy with that.”

Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who finished second at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: "It wasn’t very easy to get through the field. Through the first sector, trying to follow through at the beginning of the race, was difficult, there was quite a bit of sliding around. I cleared them and got into a good rhythm. I'm very happy to be here on the podium.

On the issue with his car: "It was right through to the finish. I was second and had a big gap behind so we decided to call it a day and settle for second. Which was quite a good recovery.

On getting the fastest lap: "I gave it a go at the end and luckily it worked out."

Fernando Alonso has been handed a 10-second time penalty by the stewards and drops down to fourth place. George Russell is promoted to third spot.

Red Bull's Sergio Perez, who won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix from pole position: “It turned out to be tougher than expected.

"We really did a good job in the first stint, that safety car tried to take it away from us. I was after the victory last year and finally I got it. The team did a fantastic job, the team have worked so hard over the week, we’ve had a lot of mechanical issues and these guys have been on top of that.

“We will keep pushing hard and the important thing is we were the fastest car out there today so I’m very pleased with that.”

Fireworks are going off in Jeddah, so let's hear from the top three...

The stewards are investigating whether Fernando Alonso served his five-second time penalty correctly when he came into the pits during the safety car period. Esteban Ocon was slapped with a 10-second penalty for the same thing in Bahrain. Is George Russell about to be handed third spot? We'll keep an eye out...

The street circuit king Sergio Perez is beaming on the podium as the Mexican national anthem is played out. Perez's career wins is up to five now. The rest of the Red Bull team are on a platform just above the podium.

11. Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri)

12. Nico Hulkenberg (Haas)

13. Zhou Guanyu (Alfa Romeo)

14. Nyck de Vries (Alpha Tauri)

15. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

16. Logan Sargeant (Williams)

17. Lando Norris (McLaren)

18. Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo)

DNF. Alex Albon (Williams)

DNF. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)