In Pictures: Saudi Arabia 2024

March 10, 2024 JOMA

Just a few days on from the curtain raiser in Bahrain, Formula 1 moved from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea for round 2, which runs from Thursday, March 7 to Saturday, March 9. While the distance, as the crow flies, from the Sakhir permanent track to the Jeddah street circuit is only around 1260 kilometers, the characteristics of the two tracks could not be more different. From a track with a very abrasive asphalt, where thermal degradation is particularly high and where stability under braking and for traction are key factors, one now moves to a track with quite a smooth surface and very high speeds (an average per lap of 250 km/h) second only to Monza in this regard.

At 6.174 kilometers in length, it is the second-longest track on the calendar, particularly twisty with 27 corners — the most of any circuit. On Saturday, the drivers will tackle it 50 times. Many of the turns are medium to high speed, subjecting the tires to high lateral forces. Similar to Bahrain, qualifying and the race take place in the evening, starting at 8:00 PM local time. Consequently, temperatures are lower than during the first free practice sessions on Thursday and Friday.

THURSDAY

As usual, on race weekends when the important track action takes place after sunset, the day’s first session is generally less representative, especially when it comes to air and track temperature. Jeddah is no exception, with FP1 starting with a track temperature of 42 °C which later dropped to 35 °C, while by the start of FP2 it was down to 28 °C and stayed stable. Track conditions seemed pretty good right from the start, in terms of grip and cleanliness, especially on the racing line.

FP2 was rather important since it is run at a representative time and conditions to qualifying and the Grand Prix on Saturday. The session was delayed by 10 minutes due to loose bolts on drain covers in the pit lane.

Fernando Alonso was the fastest driver on track at the first day of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. In the second session, run in the same temperatures the drivers will encounter tomorrow in qualifying and during Saturday’s race, the Spaniard took his Aston Martin round in 1’28”827, the only driver to break the 1’29 barrier, with a time that is almost eight tenths faster than the best FP2 lap from last year (1’29”603) set by Max Verstappen.

FRIDAY

The day started with the news that Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was diagnosed with appendicitis and had surgery, hence withdrawing from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and since neither Antonio Giovinazzi nor Robert Schwartzman were at Jeddah, it was F2 driver Oliver Bearman who replaced him. Bearman is the first driver to make his Formula 1 debut with Scuderia Ferrari since Arturo Merzario at the 1972 British Grand Prix, and Ferrari’s 97th F1 driver. He’s the third-youngest F1 driver in history, only behind Max Verstappen (17 years 5 months) and Lance Stroll (18 years 4 months). Bearman is 18years 10 months old.

INTERESTING FACTS:

Fernando Alonso’s first win in F1 is older than Oliver Bearman.
With Oliver Bearman starting the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Formula One has had at least one new driver debut each season for 75 consecutive years.

QUALIFYING

From the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, the outcome of qualifying remains the same with Max Verstappen once again securing pole position. Whereas, a week ago in Sakhir, Charles Leclerc actually set the fastest lap of the whole qualifying, in Jeddah, the three-time world champion was quickest in all three parts of the session, his best time of 1’27”472 being around eight tenths under the time that was good enough for Sergio Perez to head the field here last year. Alongside him on the front row will be Charles Leclerc (1’27”791) who, in a battle fought out to the nearest thousandths, got the better of Perez (1’27”807) and Fernando Alonso (1’27”846), Just 0.055 of a second separating the three of them.

This was Verstappen’s first pole in Jeddah, the 34th of his career, which puts him fifth on the all-time list for this discipline, just ahead of Jim Clark and Alain Prost, both with 33.

SATURDAY

Oliver “Ollie” Bearman and Charles Leclerc were the youngest pairing ever to line up for the Scuderia and the first to be made up of graduates of the Maranello Marque’s Driver Academy.

Red Bull has stamped its authority on the season so far with another one-two finish here in Jeddah, with Max Verstappen winning from team-mate Sergio Perez, in a repeat of last week’s race result in Sakhir. And yet again, a Ferrari driver completed the podium, this time courtesy of Charles Leclerc. In fact, the rest of the top ten was also very similar to the first race with the other Ferrari, driven by Oliver Bearman on his debut (7th) along with two McLarens, two Mercedes, and an Aston Martin: the only “gatecrasher” was Nico Hulkenberg, who produced an excellent drive to finish tenth for Haas.

Max Verstappen now has 56 wins to his name and he also secured his one hundredth podium finish from 187 Formula 1 Grand Prix starts, a success rate of 53.48%. It was Red Bull’s 115th win, its 30th one-two finish from 371 Grand Prix. The first two races have yielded the Austro-Anglo team 87 of the 88 points available. The only one that escaped them was the point for fastest race lap in Saudi which went to Charles Leclerc.

TIRES

As with almost every race, tires played a huge role in the outcome of the Grand Prix. On the starting grid, 18 of the 20 drivers opted to run the first stint on Medium tires, the only exceptions being Oliver Bearman and Valtteri Bottas who preferred the Soft. The Safety Car came out on lap 7 after Lance Stroll hit the barriers, triggering a run of pit stops. Only four drivers – Norris, Hamilton, Hulkenberg, and Zhou – decided to stay out on the Medium, delaying their stop as much as possible. As from lap 30, this quartet began to pit: Hulkenberg on lap 33, Hamilton on 36, Norris on 37, while Zhou went all the way to lap 41. The Haas driver was the only one to fit Hard tires, with the other three going for Soft to try and make up some places, although they did not manage it. Of the drivers who saw the checkered flag, only Bottas made two stops (Soft-Hard-Soft).

QUOTES FROM THE PODIUM

“It was great to get my 100th podium today and it was another great race for us this weekend. I am very happy to win here in Jeddah: it has been a great start to the year and we don’t know the full potential of the car yet so now we want to keep the momentum going. Because of the early pit stop with the safety car, I knew we had to work on managing the pace. Every time that I pushed I tried to extend the gap as you don’t want to be driving on the limit constantly and be taking too many risks in this circuit. It was a very long stint on the hard tyre during the race but the pace of the car was very good and I was good at managing my tires. In the last stint, the tires were getting cold and it was easy to lose the grip at the end, but we pushed through and I think we did everything well today. The ultimate goal is to fight for the championship so we are off to a great start.”

Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing | P1

“I think the early safety car compromised our race quite a lot unfortunately, I lost quite a lot going into traffic with Lando and Lewis, around seven to eight seconds. We needed to get through that quicker than we did to challenge for the win but other than that it was a strong drive and performance. I really feel like we have done the two steps forward that I was looking for this weekend, so we are getting closer to where we need to be. The Ferrari has the pace and I think there are tracks where they will be a lot closer to us, they probably didn’t maximize their full potential today and we did. Max is driving at a super high level and I think he is the only driver who has maximized qualifying and the race so far this season. It is great though because I have the best possible challenge in him. I must keep evolving weekend after weekend. Now, my full focus is on Melbourne and getting on top of what we have done here in Jeddah.”

Sergio Perez | Red Bull Racing | P2