Max Verstappen left it late to claim his first grand prix victory of the season in Saudi Arabia and earn already-crucial championship points against new rival Charles Leclerc.
With Lewis Hamilton only scraping into the points on Sunday evening, Verstappen has his eyes on a fresh target for 2022 in the form of the hugely impressive Ferrari set-up.
Verstappen was never in the lead in Jeddah until the final stages, when he made his move on Leclerc and successfully outmanoeuvred the Monegasque into Turn 1, to steal the lead and maximum points with three laps remaining.
Ferrari can still celebrate podium spots for both Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz, but the price of back-to-back grand prix victories for the Prancing Horse was just out of their grasp.
Elsewhere, George Russell ran a race practically on his own in fifth, while Hamilton reached as high as sixth from his starting position of 15th, before a required tyre change meant he finished the race battling for a single championship point.
Mercifully the horrendous crash suffered by Mick Schumacher earlier in the race weekend was not repeated, although it was the early safety car for a Nicholas Latifi crash that cost Perez, who moments before had dived into the pits.
