After an uncommon season opener in Bahrain– where all the frontrunners disallow the dominant Max Verstappen were hobbled to differing degrees– there was much to get out of Formula 1’s 2nd 2024 round, happening this weekend in Jeddah.
At F1’s 2nd night occasion in a week, there was once again just one session truly worth paying attention too – regardless of Verstappen blazing a trail in the bright late-afternoon FP1 session for Red Bull.
In FP2, he wound up ‘just’ 3rd and with Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin blazing a trail. Digging a little much deeper, the times logged so far recommend Red Bull keeps its commanding total edge even on Jeddah’s much smoother track surface area and its higher-average speed design compared to Bahrain.
There are some crumbs of convenience to be discovered for its competitors, at least based on today’s proving. Here’s whatever we gained from the opening day of track action at the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The story of the day
The F1 makers lastly got rolling at 4.30 pm regional time, with the sun still beating down on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Its distance to both the Saudi coast and desert produced some slippery early trips for the pack.
Ferrari‘s Charles Leclercin addition to Haas motorist Nico Hulkenbergwere running right approximately the wall that turns up quickly out of Turn 2’s exit– what is successfully a little barrette that follows the huge stop of the very first corner. That wall forms the Turn 3 kink, with both the works Ferrari and Haas consumer automobile being taken right to its edge here even on their very first trips, per Motorsport.com’s FP1 trackside observations.
This set revealed little problem putting the power down, something that continued through FP1’s very first half. Alonso, Verstappen and Mercedes Lewis Hamiltonnevertheless, were squirming as they sped up far from this point early on. With the track still hot from the boiling afternoon sun, grip was at a premium.
Alonso topped FP2 for Aston Martin, however Red Bull stays the significant danger once again
Picture by: Mark Sutton/ Motorsport Images
Verstappen appeared calm afterwards, as he went on to leading FP1 with a 1m29.659 s, from Alonso, who ended up 0.186 s even more back and ahead of Sergio Perez in the other RB20.
Later on in FP1, Motorsport.com clocked the leading set taking various methods to the exit of the quick, blind Turn 22 left that ends the second of 3 long, quick blasts on this course, with the fast ridge kerbs of Turn 23 quickly following.
Each time on a push lap at this phase, Verstappen would whip his RB20 even more out of Turn 22 to prevent striking excessive kerb. On his quickest FP1 lap, Alonso just steamed out of Turn 22 at complete blast and rode the complete length of the Turn 23 kerb and shooting on his method, leaving a cloud of fragments flying behind, his hands strong on the wheel as he flashed by.
Total FP2 order
1 | Alonso | Aston Martin | 1m28.827 s | |
2 | Russell | Mercedes | 1m29.057 s | 0.230 s |
3 | Verstappen | Red Bull | 1m29.158 s | 0.331 s |
4 | Leclerc | Ferrari | 1m29.180 s | 0.353 s |
5 | Gasly | Alpine | 1m29.528 s | 0.701 s |
6 | Piastri | McLaren | 1m29.594 s | 0.767 s |
7 | Tsunoda | RB | 1m29.666 s | 0.839 s |
8 | Zhou | Sauber | 1m29.777 s | 0.950 s |
9 | Albon | Williams | 1m29.789 s | 0.962 s |
10 | Magnussen | Haas | 1m29.985 s | 1.158 s |
Alonso then took the total honours in FP2, with a 1m28.827 s set on the soft-tyre certifying simulation efforts right before the half-way point in the one-hour night session.
Verstappen was bumped down to 3rd by George Russell‘s late entry into the 2nd session’s time-topping fray– the world champ choosing a 2nd work on a single set of softs after 2 cooldown trips that eventually had him end up 0.331 s behind Alonso.
Russell and Hamilton signed up Mercedes’ soft-tyre efforts behind the majority of the other frontrunners as each needed to revoke their preliminary fliers– Russell for coming across traffic.
Russell yielded Mercedes had a “scrappy” day, that included getting a fine for Hamilton’s near-miss with Sargeant
Picture by: Steven Tee/ Motorsport Images
Hamilton was a traffic issue for Logan Sargeant throughout FP2’s early phases, when the Williams motorist needed to go off-track at Turn 10 to prevent the Mercedes, which was at the time running gradually ahead of Ferrari’s Carlos SainzWith Hamilton having actually been