2 weeks Ago
How tough is the Jeddah Corniche Circuit? Just ask this year’s rookie class. Around F1’s most bombastic street-style circuit, not a single one of F1’s six rookies could make it into the top 10 come the end of Friday night. Fox Sports, available on Kayo Sports, is the only place to watch every qualifying session and race in the 2025 FIA Formula One World ChampionshipTM, LIVE in 4K with no ad-breaks during racing.
New to Kayo? Get your first month for just $1. Limited time offer. That includes Oliver Bearman, who raced here last year, and even Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who’s in a frontrunning Mercedes.
Antonelli led the way for the young guns, but from 11th he was still 0.975 seconds off the pace. Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson, Bearman and Jack Doohan all followed in his wake.
Gabriel Bortoleto was unspoken for after a fuel leak ruled him out of FP2 entirely. It underlines Jeddah is a confidence venue where experience counts. “It always just feels chaotic around here because it’s so fast,” Lando Norris summed up.
“A lot of walls, a lot of near misses.” Norris led the way at the front of the field, but with confidence such a big differentiator this weekend, McLaren’s car advantage may not be enough to stave off challengers in qualifying. PIT TALK PODCAST: Michael Lamonato and Matt Clayton dissect Oscar Piastri’s pole-to-flag masterclass in Bahrain and what that means for teammate Lando Norris as another huge week of motorsport is in the books.
Listen below of watch on YouTube . ADVANTAGE NORRIS IN MCLAREN’S STRONG START Norris set the tone for the week with his blistering Bahrain self-criticism and subsequent revelations of a lack of confidence in this year’s car. With Oscar Piastri in such fine form, the Australian arrived in Jeddah as the bookies new favourite for the championship.
But having mentally reset with three days off between races, Norris hit back in a big way during Friday practice, leading the way for McLaren across both sessions with an advantage that settled at 0.163 seconds at the end of FP2. The rapid and high-risk Jeddah Corniche Circuit is all about driver confidence, making this an important preliminary statement from Norris as he attempts to rebuild from last weekend’s battering.
“I think today’s really been a day of working on my driving, working on myself, probably more than trying to work on the car,” he said. “I’ve been getting more confident, so it was a good start to the weekend. “Gaining confidence, gaining feeling — from what I wanted to achieve today, I think I’m on the right track.
” But there’s a massive caveat in comparing their fastest times in FP2. Norris hit the brakes eight metres later into turn 1 — too late. He carried in too much speed and cut the chicane, instantly gaining him almost half a second.
A major wobble out of turn 5 handed back most, though not all, of that unfair advantage. The only other differentiator around the lap was that Piastri was fractionally slower through turn 17 at the back of the track, costing him around 0.1 seconds.
The two drivers were then evenly matched for the rest of the lap. The true difference between them is therefore unclear, though it’s evidently very close. “I think the pace has been good,” Piastri said.
“I’ve felt reasonably comfortable. “There are a few corners that I need to try and do a bit of a better job at tomorrow, but all in all it’s felt like a good day. “I think there are still some things to improve for tomorrow, a bit more pace to find, but so far everything’s been going reasonably well.
I’m feeling confident for tomorrow.” But as the Australian had predicted on Thursday, the chasing pack looks closer than it was in Bahrain, with the high-grip track surface here helping to mask aerodynamic weaknesses in rival cars. It’s also helping to reduce tyre degradation.
Pirelli has brought its softest tyres to this track — one step softer than it’s ever used here — but still a one-stop strategy seems likely. “At the minute I would say I feel confident, but the others are not far behind,” Norris said. “I was probably hoping for a bigger gap than what we had today.
“We know we’re fast, we know we have a great car, but we’re certainly not comfortable, not as comfortable as we would like.” BUT UPGRADE DILEMMA COULD COLOUR THE WEEKEND McLaren is clearly not prepared to rest on its laurels this year, bringing some important upgrades to the car this weekend in a bid to lock in its advantage over the field. The team has listed two parts to its update: a new diffuser reshaped to improve airflow conditions and a new rear brake duct winglet to improve aerodynamic efficiency.
But The Race has reported that McLaren has brought only one new diffuser to this round . Piastri got the updated part for FP1, while Norris sampled it for FP2. It’s not unusual for teams to run updates on only one car — and to swap them between cars — during Friday practice, allowing them to make direct comparisons in identical conditions in analysing whether the new parts are working as intended.
It’s also not unusual for teams to bring only one upgrade. If a meaningful breakthrough has been made in development but there’s only enough time to manufacture one part, often they’ll prioritise getting performance on one of the cars over waiting to have two sets for both drivers. McLaren did this several times over the last two years to great effect as it dug itself out of its deep performance trough.
Norris was almost always the beneficiary, being higher than Piastri on the drivers title table. But the equation is fundamentally different this year. Not only does McLaren already have a pace advantage, but Norris and Piastri are expected to be the year’s two title protagonists.
Picking one driver to receive new parts is now an exercise fraught with the risk of influencing the championship outcome. Norris is still the best placed of the two on the title table, and the Briton was quickest across both practice sessions. Who McLaren picks for the new part — if it picks at all; it could choose not to use it this week, or a second part could arrive from Woking overnight — will inevitably become a talking point in deciphering the weekend’s results.
MIXED FORTUNES FOR RED BULL RACING REBOUND Red Bull Racing’s seesawing season continues with a markedly improved showing of pure performance in Saudi Arabia just one week on from its Bahrain disappointment. But even that ended on the sour note of Yuki Tsunoda’s late FP2 crash. Tsunoda clumsily clipped the inside barrier at the final corner, shattering his front-left suspension, which sent him careering out of control into the outside barrier.
It forced a red flag with just over eight minutes to go. The session resumed with enough time only for practice starts. It left Tsunoda three places and 0.
416 seconds off Verstappen’s pace, but that gap was exaggerated by circumstance. “The last soft run was a bit compromised with the warm-up,” he said, citing an issue that’s tripped him up several times already at Red Bull Racing this season. But there is evidence of better pace.
He was only 0.003 seconds behind Verstappen in FP1. After their medium-tyre runs in FP2 he was 0.
027 seconds behind — and in fact ended up faster than the Dutchman when got another stint on mediums while Verstappen switched to softs. “The confidence level is pretty good,” he said. “The pace was looking good, so it [the crash] is a shame.
” Verstappen had a cleaner and more competitive day, ending third and only 0.28 seconds off the pace. It’s the first time the Dutchman has ended FP2 inside the top six all season.
“We tried some different things with the car trying to find a different direction with it,” Verstappen said. “I think we learnt a lot from it. “It’s still not where I want it to be — personally I don’t really look at the gaps; I think at the end of the day you have to go from your own feeling and what you feel in the car.
“From our side there’s still quite a bit of work to do and things to understand.” One of those things is how to extract better life from the tyres. The RB21 is struggling most in the slow corners, where it’s shipping bucketloads of time to McLaren even as it claws a little back at medium speed.
Over a race stint — although FP2 ending early meant no-one got a decent length long run in the books — that’s cooking the car’s tyres. “Over one lap it’s a bit better, but the long runs were very tough still for us,” Verstappen said. Race pace estimates 1.
McLaren : fastest 2. Mercedes : +0.09 seconds 3.
Ferrari : +0.23 seconds 4. Red Bull Racing : +0.
28 seconds 5. Alpine : +0.36 seconds 6.
Williams : +0.65 seconds 7. Aston Martin : +0.
76 seconds 8. Haas : +0.83 seconds 9.
Sauber : +0.89 seconds 10. Racing Bulls : +0.
99 seconds ‘EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE’ FOR FERRARI, BUT ONLY FOR ONE DRIVER Charles Leclerc found up fourth and 0.482 seconds off the pace, but his first lap on softs was compromised, meaning his quickest time was set on used rubber. Similar to Red Bull Racing, the Ferrari car is being obliterated by McLaren in the slow corners, though it’s arguably on par in the quickest bends.
Unsurprisingly most of Leclerc’s deficit can be found at the first chicane — where, it must be remembered, Norris gained an advantage by cutting the corner. So the picture at the front really is much closer than it appears, and having been optimistic his team’s Bahrain upgrades would be more effective in Jeddah, Leclerc sounded confident on Friday night that he would be a podium contender. “Obviously it’s a very challenging track where confidence has to be very high to perform at best,” he said.
“I think we changed a lot the car. but it was a very positive day, because I’ve learnt a lot from it, and I think once we put everything in the right window, there should be a bit more performance coming at the car.” He even felt that the Ferrari could vie for the front row if circumstances fell his way.
“McLaren seems to be very strong once again — a lot stronger than us — but again, never say never. If we put everything together, I think everything is possible. “I think we’ve done a good job by exploring different options.
It’s pretty clear in my head what I want to do for tomorrow, so we’re going to go in that direction, and I hope that it will pay off once we get to quali.” But Leclerc’s optimism couldn’t be any further removed from the mood in the adjoining garage, where Lewis Hamilton yet again cut a dejected figure. Hamilton ended the day 13th and 1.
1 seconds off the pace — meaning he was more than 0.6 seconds slower than Leclerc. “Not the greatest,” he said.
“Getting the tyres working today was the issue from our side. “There were a few bits through the session that felt good; it’s just when we get to the soft tyre, it’s not there.” But that 0.
6-second gap seemed consistent even on the medium tyre at the start of the stint, albeit those laps aren’t necessarily indicative of single-lap performance. It left the seven-time champion flat, noting that usually he looks better on Friday than he does on Saturday, and needing Leclerc’s data to save him from a Q2 knockout. “Normally Saturday goes backwards, but I hope there’s not a lot of backwards for me to go from where I am,” he said glumly.
“Hopefully overnight we’ll make some improvements to the car. “We’ll work together tonight to see, because through both session we were trying different things across both cars to then converge, so wing settings and all sorts. “I’m hoping tomorrow we’ll have a better understanding after we analyse tonight, and I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.
“For me I’m just trying to see if I can get in the top 10 at the moment.” After five rounds in six weekends, almost all of them bruising, you get the sense Hamilton could use the next weekend off to digest his rocky start to life as a Ferrari driver..
