[7] On 25 March, an Aramco oil depot near Jeddah, approximately 16 km (10 mi) from the circuit, was attacked by drones and missiles, triggering a large fire.

[14] The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list, with the exception of Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel, who was replaced by Nico Hülkenberg for a second consecutive race, with the former still recovering from coronavirus.

[19] Lewis Hamilton called on the Saudi authorities "to make the changes" and said there is a "need to see more", while stating that the drivers should not be held accountable for the host country's human rights issues.

[3] Ferrari's Charles Leclerc topped all three sessions ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen;[22][23][24] both he and teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. were forced to end their second practice early after each hitting the wall.

[29] After a lengthy suspension, the session was resumed, with Aston Martin's Lance Stroll, Schumacher, Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guanyu, and both McLaren drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris all eliminated at the end.

[30] During the final part of qualifying, Red Bull's Sergio Pérez took his maiden Formula One pole position ahead of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. for Ferrari in second and third, respectively.

[5] On lap 15, Nicholas Latifi retired after hitting the wall,[38] which brought out the safety car and occurred just after Pérez made a pitstop;[39] Leclerc and Verstappen were able to make their pit stops under safety car conditions, allowing them to rejoin in front of Pérez,[5] who illegally passed Sainz, who had also pitted and came out ahead of him, and had to give back position when race resumed.

[5][40][41] During much of the race, the midfield was close; there was a hard-fought battle between Alpine's Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon for quite a few laps where they swapped positions multiple times.

[5] Yellow flags on turn 1 after the Albon–Stroll incident precluded Leclerc for a DRS offensive on lap 48,[5] and Verstappen won the race, with Sainz completing the podium.

[50] From the Australian Grand Prix onwards, the FIA would clamp down on the kinds of tactics Verstappen had employed during the safety car restart, where he aggressively accelerated, braked, and drew alongside Leclerc, trying to seek a tactical advantage, following similar incidents at the 2021 Abu Dhabi and 2022 Bahrain Grands Prix, with drivers expected to drive in a consistent manner during race restarts.