In its second year of existence, all was to play for at Jeddah in order to decide who would take home a maximum of sixty-seven points. As the weekend ended it seemed Doriane Pin of PREMA racing, representing Mercedes, was king pin of the weekend winning both races. However, it wasn't long before history was rewritten.
Both half an hour races had ended in victory for the 20 year-old French driver, successfully holding off a quick paced Abbi Pulling and Maya Weug in the first race of the weekend. Pin held a strong speed after a sudden safety car restart, making her a firm contender for the title this year. At the time Pin confirmed her victories with an 8 tenths distance between her and Pulling on her fastest lap. At the end of race two, which was another victory for Pin at the time, she finished the race with 32:01:271, Pulling finishing 1.9s after. This left Pin to celebrate her victories across the weekend while they lasted before her win in race two was stripped from her.
After the end of the Saturday's race, Pin crossed the line to claim victory and was expected to go on to perform her cooldown lap. However, after crossing the line in P1, Doriane failed to spot the chequered flag signifying the end and subsequently went on to what should've been a cooldown lap at full speed. The incident resulted in a twenty second penalty for Pin, dropping her from P1 down to P9 in the rankings of the second race, promoting Pulling to victory. It is reported that in a conversation with fellow PREMA racing team member and Ferrari representer, Maya Weug, that Doriane expressed radio issues, although, this doesn't seem the case. Pin's race engineer had asked her during the penalty costing lap "Doriane what are you doing? It's the chequered flag!" In immediate response Doriane exclaimed "You didn't tell me!"
The race incident took media spotlight over the following days as discussion began to take place. The overall reaction to Pin's twenty second penalty was one of confusion and outrage. Sky Sports F1's Damon Hill took to X (Twitter) to voice his opinion on the event, claiming: "Maybe they should indicate the end of the race with lights too, instead of just waving a flag about 20ft up in a blind spot. Maybe? I'm not an expert. Oh! Yes I am!" Hill's stand against the penalty summarised the opinions of the masses. Chris Medland, a freelance F1 journalist for RACER and Motor Sport magazine, also expressed his dismissal of the decision from the FIA: "That was not a great situation that saw Pin still flat out after the chequered flag. She didn't see it (it was out) and the team appeared not to tell her on team radio."
Overall, Pin displayed an incredible performance over the weekend at Jeddah, with an unfortunate end to it all. The wave of support for the French driver has been an indication that perhaps the FIA's penalty was simply just unfair. Though, that is not to be confused with the idea that Pin should have got off scot-free, just that a twenty second penalty was unrealistic. Karun Chandhok, Formula One live commentator, expressed a collective feeling about the severity of Doriane's punishment: "Err…. What?! Surely it should have just been a warning?" Fans of the driver, and of the sport, can be seen agreeing with Chandhok that the FIA did not punish Pin in an appropriate manor, causing the unfair drop in places.