The race in Jeddah now live!

Open session ticker now!

The second race of the year is about to begin and we’re moving the action back to our session ticker. Here at this point things will continue as normal later with the votes for the GP in Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, I recommend you take a look our watch party on the Formula1.de YouTube channel. There you can enjoy the Jeddah race together with Kevin Scheuren and Kevin Hermann.

Working at Hamilton

Exciting: Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes is currently in trouble, and the mechanics on the starting grid are apparently still working on the brakes. Maybe Hamilton wasn’t happy with something on the formation lap.

Let’s keep that in mind!

Advantage Verstappen

At least statistically speaking! In the previous three Formula 1 races in Jeddah, the winner came from pole position twice: in 2021, Lewis Hamilton won the premiere of the race from P1, and last year Sergio Perez.

The only driver who was able to win from further back was Verstappen himself! In 2022 he triumphed from fourth place on the grid.

All on the grid

Fortunately, there were no further incidents, so all 20 drivers made it onto the starting grid. But we don’t yet know which tires they will start on. As always, we only find out about this immediately before the start.

By the way, here you can see a picture of the Tsunoda Norris scene:

First incident

The race hasn’t even started yet and there’s already trouble! The Racing Bulls let Tsunoda out of the garage immediately in front of Norris, so that the McLaren driver had to brake heavily. There was almost a crash.

The race stewards at least made a note of the incident, so there could be a penalty.

Pit lane opens

We are now putting our full focus on the race in Saudi Arabia. 40 minutes left until the start and that means the pit lane has just opened. The drivers now have ten minutes to make their way to the starting grid.

At the season opener in Bahrain, not only were all 20 drivers on the grid, but all 20 drivers also finished at the finish. If this were to succeed today, it would be a first. So far, more than 18 cars have never crossed the finish line in Jeddah.

In 2022, only 13 drivers saw the checkered flag.

Marko stays!

Dr. Helmut Marko has just spoken to his colleagues at Sky gave a very important interview. As already written here during the morning, there was a meeting with Red Bull CEOs Frank Watzlawick and Oliver Mintzlaff, in which his future was also discussed, which is now secured:

“It was a very good conversation. Of course there has to be calm back in the team. That’s a priority. We agreed on all points. I’ll continue here. The term of my contract is still three years. But there has to be calm.”

This makes it clear: Marko is staying! A story about this interview will appear on the portal shortly.

My colleague Ruben Zimmermann will take over here shortly, because I will be preparing for the big watch party that I am organizing together with Kevin Hermann on the Formula1.de YouTube channel will deny.

Safety car as a factor

In Saudi Arabia there is a 100% safety car probability. This could mean that the planned one-stop strategy has to be thrown out because the second stop is essentially given to you for free.

It is clear that this definitely has to be taken into account when planning the strategy, but a stop would still be quickest, as Pirelli shows us.

Full support

The most beautiful scene in the drivers’ parade belonged, how could it be otherwise, to Oliver Bearman.

He was actually supposed to be chasing points for the Prema team in Formula 2 this weekend, but now he can drive Formula 1 for Ferrari, but the team still supports him 100 percent.

Parts of his Formula 2 team came together for the drivers’ parade to loudly cheer him on, which made the Brit visibly happy.

Points for clean?

Valtteri Bottas just gave an interesting interview at the drivers’ parade. The Finn goes into the race confidently.

“It’s a race with possibilities,” and further, “if everything goes perfectly, I think there are points possible today,” said Bottas.

Bottas himself will start the race from 16th place, his teammate Guanyu Zhou unfortunately from the very back.

© Motorsport Images

Sainz on the track

Carlos Sainz is back in the paddock!

After the successful operation yesterday, Friday, the Spaniard is fit enough to be able to witness the race of his replacement Oliver Bearman on site. He has already met his boss John Elkann at the Ferrari Hospitality and, given the circumstances, he seems to be doing well.

Great anticipation

Oliver Bearman is starting his first Formula 1 Grand Prix in less than two hours. Charles Leclerc just said at the drivers’ parade that it’s nice to see how much Bearman is looking forward to the race and he hopes he can get a good result.

Spontaneous deployment is always challenging for a replacement driver. But these drivers are there to accept them.

Our photo series provides an overview of the last ten substitute driver appearances in Formula 1.

With balance to victory?

What is missing at McLaren to finally attack at the top? If you can believe team boss Andrea Stella’s explanations, then above all the balance and more efficiency when using DRS:

“As soon as the DRS is activated, we lose time. Especially compared to Red Bull.”

Is that correct? We took a look at that in this article.

Mintzlaff & Marko: “Good conversation”

Oliver Mintzlaff seemed relaxed and in a good mood when he came into the paddock with Helmut Marko today. But he wasn’t talkative: “We’re focusing on racing,” he told some journalists, including our Motorsport Network reporter Adam Cooper. And: “We had a good conversation. But we now want to concentrate on the sport and on getting our second win of the season. We don’t plan on exposing our internal personnel issues to the whole world.”

© circuitpics.de

The tire options

Pirelli has also just published an overview of which teams still have which tires available.

Don’t let the graphics confuse you, both McLaren and Aston Martin have relatively fresh hard tires because they only used their sets for one lap.