A First Look At Saudi Under The Lights
Our first visit to Jeddah means there is plenty to learn after a Friday when both Honda-powered teams showed encouraging pace.
Max started the weekend in impressive fashion, immediately going quickest early on and leading the way for the majority of the first session on the hard compound tyre. He would finish the session in second place after his first soft-tyre lap was ruined by traffic, but he was still just 0.05s off the fastest time.
Pierre was fourth quickest for Scuderia AlphaTauri as he also started strongly, with Sergio in 11th and Yuki 15th as all of the drivers got to grips with a brand new circuit, where the grip level was improving all the time.
The first session took place before sunset, but the second was more representative as it was held at the same time as qualifying, and it was Pierre who excelled as he ended up third fastest, just 0.081s away from top spot.
Max was within 0.2s of the fastest time in fourth, with Yuki’s eighth place particularly impressive because his best time came on the hard compound tyre. Sergio was ninth to ensure all four cars ended Friday in the top ten, although the long runs were cut slightly short by a big crash for Charles Leclerc that ended FP2 early, with the Ferrari driver thankfully unharmed in the incident.
We’ll now analyse all of the data gathered from the first day of running on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit to seek further performance gains ahead of Saturday’s action.