Official F1 Journal Formula 1 Thursday Round Up- Jeddah Corniche

Race 2 Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Corniche circuit, the 2nd fastest track on the F1 Calendar, 2nd only to Monza and 1 of only 9 anti clockwise tracks F1 race at. After Bahrain we have seen that the Qualifying gap is closer than 2023 but the race pace gap to Verstappen in the Redbull is still significant. But Jeddah is a Perez track, he has taken pole here twice and has out shone team mate Verstappen since we started racing here in 2021 so can Sergio close the gap to Max here or dare i say even beat him? 
Lets get going with how the grid got on in the 2 Thursday Practice sessions. 

 27 42Practice 1- Very Windy         Track Temp 42º    Air Temp 27º

Cars came out on a mixture of Medium & Hard tyres. Hamilton was straight out and fastest for Mercedes followed by the rest of the grid only 4 cars waiting to go out most notably Verstappen who didn't join the session till 54 minutes to go. The Gasly on the Medium tyre set a faster 1st laps out than Sainz on the hards  despite the Ferrari looking rapid in the hands of Sainz round the Jeddah track.  Perez on the hards, who has great history here in Jeddah was top after the 1st round of laps, till he was beaten by Norris on the mediums in the Mclaren with Russell 3rd. Verstappen's 1st lap only good enough for 8th.
Piastri put himself 2nd on the Hards with a great lap as Stroll hit the inside wall of turn 22 and was lucky to get away with a hit that hard and minimal damage. 
On his next time of trying Verstappen went 2nd only slower than Russell in his Mercedes 
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After the flurry of activity at the start of the session, the cars settled in to long run data collection with both the Mercedes, Redbull, Ferrari and Aston Martins running the Hard tyres and Mclaren splitting their cars data collection with Norris on the Medium and Piastri on the Hard. With 39 minutes to go and just Leclerc, Perez, Ricciardo Tsunoda and Sargeant on track  the 2 Alpine cars were 7th(GAS) & 8th(OCO) looking much happier in the car here than in Bahrain last week. 
32 to go Norris & Bottas were the first drivers to set a flying lap on the Soft tyres with Norris going top as Albon kissed the barrier Williams still going 3rd fastest despite touching the wall. Verstappen joined Norris on the softs and immediately went 4 tenths faster the the Mclaren. Russell was also looking very fast on his soft tyres going 0.003 faster than Max with a mega lap. Albon & Williams were holding their own in 6th after his soft tyre run with Alex telling the team there was more in the car.  
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19 to go Verstappen top with 1'29.659, Russell 2nd, Norris 3rd, Hamilton 4th & Perez 5th all covered by 0.748. 
The 2 Ferrari's pushed their way up to 4th(LEC) & 5th(SAI) before we saw all the cars but Norris, Sargeant & Alonso come into the pits before the 10 minute count down began. While the track was quiet Alonso set a great time only 0.186 behind Vertsappen

8 minutes to go, the track started to fill once more. Ricciardo moved up to 12th back on the Medium tyres, Magnussen, Hulkenberg & Tsunoda also ended the session back on the Mediums to do race runs. 
Sargeant & one of the Ferrari's almost came together at turn 10 as the Ferrari impeeded the Williams on a fast lap- scary stuff at Jeddah. 
1 minute on the clock and all the cars were on track Piastri had a tough session, finding the kerbs far more than he would like down in 15th with Sargeant in 14th ahead of him. All the cars came around to do their practice starts and the first session ended how the Bahrain race ended.... with the Redbull's 1-2 at the top. On to Practice 2. 

Practice 1 Result 

1 VER 1'29.659    2 ALO +0.186
3 PER +0.209      4 RUS +0.280
5 LEC +0.371       6 SAI +0.505
7 NOR +0.572      8 HAM +0.577
9 STR +0.921      10 ALB +1.088
11 BOT + 1.124    12 RIC + 1.258
13 OCO +1.286    14 SAR +1.307
15 PIA +1.318       16 TSU +1.377
17 GAS +1.387     18 ZHO +1.472
19 HUL +1.752      20 MAG +1.918​

Practice 2 

The start of the session was delayed due to the FIA wanting to check possibly loose drain covers in the pitlane. Carlos Sainz looked noticeably unwell as he climbed in his car to get going after the delay.  They got running at 10 minutes after the original start time with the offending drain being outside the Alpine garage. Once the lights went green all the cars went out, Practice 2 is the session closest in conditions to Qualifying and the Race so lots of data to be collected for the team and preparation for the driver over both short Qualifying Simulations as well as high fuel long running to assess Saturdays Race pace, its a huge amount to get done in just 1 hours. 
After the first runs Perez was faster than team mate Max Verstappen, with Alonso in 3rd till just a few minutes later  Alonso(med) went over 4 tenths faster than Perez, Norris on the Hard tyre went 2nd fastest with a great lap, till Leclerc went faster than the Mclaren man and taking 2nd place on medium tyres. Tsunoda and Ricciardo were the only cars with Soft tyres on everyone else running the medium or Hard, as Hamilton and Sainz got dangerously in the way of Sargeant on a fast lap. 

47 minutes to go Verstappen was purple in sector 1 of his next lap and despite not improving in sector 2 & 3 still topped the times with Alonso 2nd and Sainz 3rd even with him feeling so unwell. 
38 to go its was just the Saubers, Ricciardo & Piastri on track. Piastri after a tough Practice 2 session set purple sectors before bailing into the pits before completing the lap.
36 minutes on the clock and the cars began to rejoin the track after some set up changes and put on a different set of tyres with the Soft tyres going on the Aston Martin, Norris also began his soft tyre running but had a scuffy lap complaining about the car bottoming out, Leclerc was next up on the softs and went 2nd fastest. Tsunoda jumped up to 5th till Stroll pushed him down to 6th by going 3rd fastest. Vertsappen didn't improve and after the 1st round of softs runs he was down in 5th. 

30 minutes to go and the long running began with the cars getting down to the race pace running while traffic in turn 10 was creating some very dangerous incidents for Alonso and Russell. 
20 minutes to go Alonso was top, Russell 2nd, Verstappen 3rd. Leclerc & Perez 4th & 5th. Piastri & Norris found themselves down in 10th and 11th while the long runs continued, Hamilton was 8th, Gasly was having a good session up in 9th fastest and Stroll 6th fastest in the sister Aston Martin.

Sargeant had a big moment at turn 1, taking to the run off area lucky not to hit one of the ever present walls at Jeddah and with 5 minutes left of the session Hamilton seems to have had a problem, radioing back to the pitwall 'NO POWER' before diving straight into the pits. 
It was a very quiet end to the session wit al the cars keeping their heads down and get their data collection for the race done before tge driers lined up to do their practice starts. 
on to Friday, Practice 3 and Qualifying with Aston Martin Fastest, Russell & Mercedes 2nd and Verstappen 3rd. 

Practice 2 Result 

1 ALO 1'28.827         2 RUS +0.230
3 VER +0.331           4 LEC +0.353
5 PER +0.473           6 STR +0.509
7 SAI +0.628             8 HAM +0.677
9 GAS +0.701          10 PIA +0.767
11 TSU +0.839         12 NOR +0.931
13 ZHO +0.950         14 ALB +0.962
15 OCO +1.074        16 SAR +1.107
17 MAG +1.158         18 HUL +1.250
19 RIC +1.261            20 BOT +1.326

Joanna Blackmore 
Writer @f1journal.co.uk