The Thursday in F1 Saudi Arabian GP was hectic in terms of slips and traffic, but it was overall quite somber in a tight field.
It was a pretty somber Thursday in F1 Saudi Arabian GP where the field was quite close. Even thought Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso set the pace in FP2 where Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was behind, the Dutchman seems confident still.
Verstappen knows Red Bull’s one-lap pace may not be that great, but he knows they have enough pace to still end up in front. Alonso, meanwhile, played down his chances despite showing some pace, noting about various fuel loads and engine modes.
Ferrari had a 50-50 run with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, with Spaniard still going through illness for which he missed the Wednesday sessions. On Mercedes side, it was contrasting situation for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
The former had issues with his rear as he lacked confidence. Russell, on the other hand, felt much better as he noted about running different set-ups to understand the differences. He also revealed about the FIA having new addition on the steering wheel.
The new information is about cars around them to alert them about traffic. McLaren, meanwhile, had a time where they looked good at certain points but it didn’t last far too long which is why they found themselves at the fag end of the Top 10.
Alonso: “I feel good. Obviously it’s only free practice. As we saw last year and also in Bahrain, we are faster in free practice than in qualifying. I think we run different strategy, in terms of fuel loads, engine modes and so on. We keep our programme ahead. There were not really any issues with the car. Set-up possibilities are also quite open for tomorrow. But yeah, definitely a good Thursday for us. We just jump out of the car and we have to come here to speak with you, so I have no idea.”
Verstappen: “It will be again very, very tight. I think that is probably where other people are probably a bit better than us, over one lap. Our car probably comes a bit more alive on the long run. I think overall we learned a lot. Of course there’s always things you look at to do better over one-lap performance, but I think also some teams already, they used a little bit more power, like they did in Bahrain, so we’ll take that also into consideration. But when we went into the long runs, it looks again quite nice, so quite happy with that.”
Sainz: “It has been a very difficult day for me as I haven’t fully recovered from the sickness that has kept me in bed for the last 24 hours and I still feel very weak. Anyway, I made it to the track and managed to maximise the time with the car and the team. This track has a lot of grip and the high speed corners makes it very demanding for cars and drivers. Even though I couldn’t push to the limit today, at least we completed the programme and hopefully tomorrow I will be fully recovered and we can focus on qualifying and the race.”
Hamilton: “Yeah, a typical day, just lacking the confidence in the rear of the car. [With] the set-up we did some work session to session, changed quite a bit, but [there was still the] underlying issue with the rear end that I was struggling with, so I had a couple of really big moments out there. In these high-speed areas you need to have full faith in the rear of the car and I don’t have that yet. I don’t know, we need to go through the data but George is obviously a lot happier with his car. We went in different directions today, trying different things to find the right solution for the car, but yeah, all I want is a stable rear and then I’ll be happy, so that’s what we are working on.”
Russell: “It was fun to be back in Jeddah, such a high-speed circuit, that’s enjoyable. Little bit of a scrappy session, I don’t think we had the car in the perfect window, I think the lap times looked good and in the low-fuel high-fuel pace. I don’t know where we are at really but it’s so close again. The Aston Martins have been a bit of a surprise, great to see them up there and we have work to do overnight to see what we can achieve tomorrow. Yeah absolutely, but we did a lot of testing today. In FP1 Lewis started with one set-up, I started with one drastically different. Then in FP2 we did the complete opposite, we swapped set-ups to see what worked, to try and learn more about the car, trying to get feedback from us both. And it is still early days. We’ve only been at one circuit, it’s a new car, so we need to keep on learning. So as I said, let’s see what we can do tonight. Everybody back at home will be working hard on the simulator and try and eke out a bit more performance.
“It’s always difficult in Jeddah. You can’t have it all. It’s one of the best circuits to drive, so exhilarating but you can’t see. So it’s definitely challenging. The FIA at the start of the year introduced something on our steering wheel to show us the car in front and the car behind and the gaps, which has been a real improvement. But the thing is, if you have two cars behind on a slow lap, and a car travelling at 200mph ten seconds behind and he passes through, I think that’s kind of what happened with Lewis and Sargeant, you’ll have one car behind and it will say that direct driver who is behind but you don’t know who is three or four cars behind that on a push lap. But definitely a real improvement in terms of the safety in that regard.”
Norris: “A reasonable day. A bit of a better feeling than we had in Bahrain. There were certain corners where we’re struggling to get the balance in the right window. There’s a few bits we need to improve but, on the whole, I think it was a pretty decent day. Some work to do but still a good start to the weekend.”
The second half of the grid saw Visa Cash App RB pair in position to enter the Top 10 but while Yuki Tsunoda seemed to have decent running, Daniel Ricciardo reckoned FP2 was not so good where he struggled a bit on the soft compound.
It was similar for Stake F1 Team’s Valtteri Bottas where the experiments in FP2 didn’t work after a promising FP1. It was contrasting for the Haas F1 pair too, where Kevin Magnussen noted about struggling on low fuel rather than high fuel running.
Even Alpine’s Pierre Gasly noted about feeling a bit better in Saudi Arabia than Bahrain, even though they were a bit behind in the order. Williams’ Alexander Albon felt better than Bahrain too, in terms of raw pace.
Albon: “The car felt good and from the moment we hit the track, it’s been in a good place. FP2, we made some changes and most of them worked, with only a couple of exceptions, so we’ll work to find a sweet spot for tomorrow. The race runs look sensible, so I’m pretty optimistic. We’ve got a good car and like always, it’s going to be close but I’m enjoying it out there, it’s a fun circuit. We’re going to aim for the top of the midfield and hope to take advantage of any opportunities we can.”
Ricciardo: “It was an FP2 session of two halves. We were competitive on the first set of the soft compound but instead, I struggled a lot with the second set. The track was getting better, and everyone was improving, but I really struggled to improve my time because I encountered some traffic and didn’t feel that bite. The second set was a little bit of a mystery, so there’s something to learn from that, but looking at the first set, we don’t have to be too discouraged. We’ll get back to work tonight and understand how we can put it all together. Looking at tomorrow, it’s really hard to predict the outcome because the standing has been very close today. It’s such a different circuit compared to Bahrain; the surface and the way the tyres behave are different. It’s a great track, so I think qualifying will be a fun session tomorrow.”
Bottas: “It’s good to be back on this track – it’s always a fun layout to drive on, and completely different from what we had in Bahrain last week. The car felt rather good in FP1, I was feeling comfortable on track right from the start. We experimented a bit more for the second practice session, testing different setup configurations, and some of them didn’t go in the right direction. Still, as a positive, we learned which way not to go, and the data gathered today will be useful as we work through it overnight with a view to qualifying.”
Magnussen: “I think we had a decent day – nothing spectacular on pace – but again the car seems okay on long runs, more so than low-fuel. We need to pick up the pace a little bit there, so hopefully we can do that but it’s very tight, so even finding two-tenths and you’re close to the top 10. It’s so close, I think we could get close to the top 10 with an amazing lap and we hook up the balance in the car. We want to get a decent qualifying position, but the race is the important one so that’s still what we’re focusing on. It’s all to play for tomorrow.”
Gasly: “It’s great to be back in Jeddah. It’s such a different style to Bahrain with the high-speed sequences. Looking at the pace, we seem to be slightly more competitive than last week, but it is only the beginning of the weekend and there’s a long way to go. The feeling inside the car is still challenging, there are some limitations, but, equally, there are positives for us to take forward. I’m staying calm. We have a good base to work from and there’s certainly more things we can do to extract more performance from the current package here. I’m looking forward to tomorrow when it counts.”
Here’s how FP1 of F1 Saudi Arabian GP panned out
Here’s how FP2 of F1 Saudi Arabian GP panned out
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