The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, home to the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, and home to the 2nd race weekend of the Formula 1 calendar. The Jeddah Corniche Circuit is a 6.174 kilometer or 3.836 mile long track, right on the waterfront of Jeddah Corniche, in the city of Jeddah. The track broke ground in March of 2021 and was finished just in time for its inaugural event, the 2021 F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, held in December of 2021. The 27 turn track is the second longest track on the F1 calendar, only behind the Belgian Circuit of Spa-Francorchamps, and is also hailed as the fastest street circuit in Formula 1. Jeddah Corniche Circuit was designed by Carsten Tilke, son of fellow F1 track designer, Hermann Tilke. Lewis Hamilton is so far the track’s only winner, and he also holds the race lap record, with a 1:30:734, in his Mercedes W12
Qualifying Highlights
Stage one of qualifying was red flagged only 7 minutes into the session, as Nicholas Latifi spun his Williams FW44 into the side barriers which had to be retrieved by the marshalls. Despite the incident each driver was able to go onto the track and set a lap time, except for Yuki Tsunoda who had a fuel problem on board his AlphaTauri AT03. At the end of Q1 Lewis Hamilton was in the elimination zone standing in 15th, but on his final lap he was able to jump out of the elimination zone into 14th. Hamilton seemed to just slide into Q2 but Lance Stroll, who was just behind Hamilton, leapfrogged Hamilton and put his Aston Martin AMR22 into Q2. This was the first time Hamilton saw himself out in Q1 since Brazil of 2017. As the Q2 timer ran down to 5 minutes, Mick Schumacher, who was running 9th fastest at the time, had a heavy collision with the wall, forcing Schumacher out of qualifying and out of Sunday’s race as he was advised not to race for his safety. Schumacher was responsive at the site of the crash and was assessed to have no injuries. During Q3 the Ferrari’s held the pole position for many laps, but in the end it was Sergio Perez who came out on top. Checo scored his first pole of his career while the Ferrari’s of Leclerc and Sainz finished in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Daniel Ricciardo received a three place penalty after qualifying as the FIA reviewed an incident where Ricciardo impeded the out lap of Esteban Ocon. The starting order for the race was as follows Perez, Leclerc, Sainz, Verstappen, Ocon, Russell, Alonso, Bottas, Gasly, Magnussen, Norris, Zhou, Stroll, Ricciardo (Three place penalty), Hamilton, Albon, Hulkenberg, Latifi, Tsunoda
Lights Out
On the lineup lap, Yuki Tsunoda had a complete engine failure aboard his AT03, forcing him to retire from the race before it had started. In the opening laps of the race, Max Verstappen got past the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz, and put himself among the podium runners. Guanyu Zhou struggled getting his Alfa Romeo C42 off the line and dropped from his starting position of 12th all the way to 16th. The Alpine duo of Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso battled from the 5th lap to the 7th lap, fighting for 6th position, with Fernando finally getting past the defensive Ocon on the 7th lap.
Ferrari looked ready to pit on the 16th lap sending their pit crew out with a set of tires for 2nd place Charles Leclerc, forcing Red Bull to respond with a pit of their own for Sergio Perez, but as Perez came into pit lane, Leclerc stayed out. Shortly after the Ferrari dummy, Nicholas Latifi put his Williams in the wall for the second day running, bringing out the yellow flag and the safety car, pinning drivers like Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly in a terrible spot as they had both just come into the pits, and granting Ferrari a free pit stop under the safety car. Under safety car Perez was able to make his spot up back to 3rd but it was certainly not as comfortable a spot as the first place he held before as now he had a Ferrari two spots ahead and a Ferrari directly behind. On lap 36 Fernando Alonso was forced to retire with engine problems and Daniel Ricciardo was forced to retire with engine problems the very next lap. Valtteri Bottas joined the retirement party the next lap as he had to retire due to gearbox problems aboard his C42. On lap 42 Max Verstappen was able to pass Charles Leclerc for the lead of the race, but with DRS, Leclerc was able to pass Verstappen back going into the next corner. Verstappen waited behind the championship leader of Leclerc until lap 47 where he passed the Ferrari on the start finish straight, Verstappen would hold off Leclerc and take the checkered flag in first place. Charles Leclerc did take home the spare point for fastest lap putting him on 45 points for the season with Sainz 2nd in the championship with 33 points and Verstappen 3rd with 25. Only 13 of the 19 starting challengers finished the race leaving only 3 drivers out of the points. Finishing order was Verstappen, Leclerc, Sainz, Perez, Russell, Ocon, Norris, Gasly, Magnussen, Hamilton, Zhou, Hulkenberg, Stroll.
Next Up
Formula 1 heads to Australia next, from April 8th to the 10th, making their much awaited return to Albert Park, which saw its last Formula 1 race in March of 2019.
