Formula 1 completely robs fans of potential Saudi Arabia thriller

Red Bull's Max Verstappen and McLaren's Oscar Piastri started Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on the front row at Jeddah Corniche Circuit, and while Piastri appeared to get away cleaner than Verstappen did, Verstappen was able to use the outside lane to his advantage and stay in front heading into turn one.

But because of the nature of turn one of the tight and tricky 27-turn, 3.837-mile (6.175-kilometer) temporary street circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Piastri went wide from the inside, causing Verstappen to go off the race track.

Verstappen retained the lead because of the evasive maneuver, but the stewards found him at fault and issued him a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage.

In and of itself, the penalty is subjective. Yes, he did leave the track, and yes, he did gain an advantage. But Piastri also left him no room in a corner which saw Verstappen enter ahead. Yet on the flip side of that, Verstappen did brake later than Piastri did, which could have made it seem like he had already given up on trying to make the corner.

As is almost always the case, it could have gone either way.

We have seen drivers in both Verstappen's position and Piastri's position penalized before. In fact, Verstappen has been on the receiving end of penalties from both points of view (multiple times), illustrating the overall lack of consistency from the stewards.

But even with the stewards determining that Verstappen was at fault, a five-second penalty was not the way to go about it. They'll pretend that the official penalty was "lenient" and that it could have been a 10-second penalty had it not happened on the opening turn of the opening lap, but they really should have simply let them switch spots at most.

They had the perfect opportunity to do it, too, given the fact that there was a safety car just moments later after Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine's Pierre Gasly came together.

Instead, they robbed fans of a potential thriller in the season's fifth Grand Prix.

Verstappen and Piastri were separated by no more than about four seconds all race, irrespective of who was in front. Verstappen was not able to extend his lead by much more than a second or two in a slower Red Bull, so when his five-second penalty was served in the pits and Piastri took over out front, the race was pretty much over.

Had the two actually been allowed to race at any point beyond the starting grid, regardless of who was in front after the ensuing restart, it could have produced fireworks not seen since the latter stages of the 2022 Jeddah race between Verstappen and Charles Leclerc, or even the inaugural Jeddah race between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton the year before.

Unfortunately, however, even in what turned out to be the first race of the season not won by the polesitter, the result was largely predetermined after the first corner, thanks to a bogus at worst, and inconsistent at best, penalty on Verstappen that should have either been scrapped altogether or altered to accurately reflect the "crime".