2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Jeddah, March 25 - 27 Sportsbook Motor Sport

[Tom]

This thread is for the general discussion of the event 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Jeddah, March 25 - 27. Please add to the discussion here.

 

[Tom]

Last year this track required power, great traction and a pretty decent amount of downforce.

Don't see any reason why it won't be Ferrari and Red Bull at the front again. I imagine Mercedes will still be in no man's land for the moment.

I think it will give a better understanding of the midfield though. I'm interested to see how Alfa/Haas/AT/Alpine shake out.

If McLaren/Williams/AM don't bring any significant changes I don't expect too much change even though the track layout is far different than Bahrain.

 

[Franco Pinion]

Hopefully we get some more of what we saw last week.

So far in the world of clickbait F1 journalism, I have seen only 2 acceptable theories for the Redbull issue, weight limits so they under fueled the cars with a miscalculation on how much they would need. The second one which I believe a little bit more as it would kinda cover Gasly as well. That they were using the battery side in a very aggressive setup and it basically went into a failure mode on the Red Bulls and a fire mode for Gasly. Might also explain the absolute monstrous speed Max Verstappen was getting down the Start-Finish Straight.

Be interesting to see if will have any effect this weekend.

Jeddah is supposed to make Mercedes worse also, so more points for HAAS?

 

[Tom]

Suspected missile attack on a refinery in Jeddah while the free practice was going on. As if the race wasn't dangerous enough.

I'd be pretty concerned that one of the F1 sponsors (Aramco) having an oil facility near the track is getting attacked by a missile. What's to stop terrorists from sending one to the track?!

Each and every turn of events shows F1 shouldn't be going there.

 

[Franco Pinion]

They are going ahead with the race by the looks of things, the FIA president came out and basically said it's ok, they're not aiming at us, so apparently, it's grand? Sounds like insanity to me.

 

[Tom]

The drivers are still in a meeting. They should refuse to race, ship up and get out. They should never be racing in Saudi and hopefully won't ever go there again.

 

[Fraser]

The drivers have been meeting for over 2 hours now with both Domenicali and Brawn being called into the meeting so no guarantee it'll go ahead yet.

While it'll be disappointing to have no race this weekend, the right thing to do is to cancel given they've already set a precedence in cancelling the Russian Grand Prix.

 

[Son Of Jack]

Massive crash by Schumacher in qualifying

 https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1507778333706174475

Mick has no injuries according to FIA. Fantastic news!

Red Bull's Sergio Perez beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc to take his first Formula 1 pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The Mexican was 0.261 seconds quicker than world champion team-mate Max Verstappen, who was down in fourth.

Perez beat Leclerc by 0.225secs, with Ferrari's Carlos Sainz third, 0.177secs behind his team-mate.

Mercedes driver George Russell was sixth as team-mate Lewis Hamilton could manage only 16th.

 

[Tom]

Mick has no injuries according to FIA. Fantastic news!

Good to hear he is ok. Could, and would, have been a lot worse if it was during the race.

Mercedes driver George Russell was sixth as team-mate Lewis Hamilton could manage only 16th.

I wonder if they will make a load of changes to the car and take the grid penalties and start from the pitlane with Hamilton? There will undoubtedly be VSC's and red flags in the race tomorrow so anything can happen.

Not much point starting 16th with a car that is slow and being limited to wing and psi changes only, because of parc ferme rules.

 

[Snoops]

Red Bull off to an aggressive start.

Perez away well and Verstappen up to 3rd.