All that remains is the fight for the checkered flag.
As this season has already done, Max Verstappen surprised everyone by snatching the pole position for the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, ending 0.010 seconds ahead of Oscar Piasstri. But as the Red Bull team director Christian Horner pointed out, after the qualification, Verstappen will have full hands when the lights come out later today.
“But what we have seen this weekend, the McLaren is very, very fast, particularly on the edge of the race. So I think we are going to have a great fight in our hands to try to keep Oscar behind us. But we begin to go to God, so he is in gosible,” Horner when he speaks Sky Sports F1 After the session.
“Honestly, I didn’t think it was possible to enter that session. But it simply shows yourself, you never give up. We have a great team, you keep fighting. You keep chasing the performance and then Max, he will go and give you that last breeding or acting.”
If Verstappen can stop Piastri, it is one of the main conversation points that is directed to Sunday at the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.
A fascinating fight in the front
Until now, this week has been quite similar to the Japanese Grand Prix a few weeks ago. While McLaren’s duo of Lando Norris and Piasstri entered Saturday as favorites for the Pole Position, it was Verstappen who snatched P1 from the papaya couple, maintaining that spot disease compared.
A race that sometimes seemed more a parade than a Grand Prix, given the lack of advancement.
While the passage is a premium around the Jeddah Corniche circuit, it is not impossible. Three DRS and 27 corners are combined to allow driver drivers to invent land on the track. While Verstappen has the advantage outside the line, the race towards the left -handed curve 1 will give Piasstri the opportunity to take leadership. But if the Australian driver cannot catch Verstappen from the beginning, the rhythm of the MCL39 should give him more opportunities.
And if Verstappen and Piastri get entangled, that could open for George Russell, who starts third place?
What about the other drivers in the front?
Could some outside the first three make a career in the checkered flag?
Charles Leclerc starts fourth, next to Russell in the second row. But Ferrari’s driver did not seem too much confidence in his chances of fighting Sunday. Speaking to the official F1 channel after the qualification, Leclerc minimized the Chans and did not hide his “disappointment.”
“They are feelings found,” said Ferrari’s driver. “Yes, I’m happy with my job, but I’m disappointed with [the result]. Fighting for P4 is not what I want and not what makes me happy, so for now I am disappointed. “
As for his teammate, Lewis Hamilton sounded a little more optimistic after qualifying the seventh, and transmitted some optimism that was heading to Sunday.
“I would say that I am satisfied, but I am happy that yesterday, and also through each practice session I was 12 or 13, Norris said Sky Sports F1. “I simply washed well with the car under me, it was not really easy at all, so to have gotten into the Q3, it is not that it cannot not matter how close it is, I am grateful to have reached Q3. P7 is fine, it is better than my last qualification, so I still have a job to do to gelify with this car.
“We really didn’t do a long career in practice, but this is, I think a clue where there is an excess of attack, so [I’m] Thinking about the future. “
A driver to monitor is Kimi Antonelli, who will begin the fifth. Althegh in his mind, P4 was certainly on the table.
“That was a very intense rating,” Antonelli said in the report after the team qualification. “The session as a Whole Went Well, and I continued to build my speeed. With, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, while, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with, with With, with, with, to Q3 and with, with, to q3 and with, with, with, with, q3 and with, with, q3 and with, with, with, with q3 and with, with, with, with, to q3 and, anyway, I need to see exactly what happened, but a moment in the first sector that was of few tents.
Trust is certainly being built in your mind, which could turn it into a dark horse on Sunday.
“I feel more and safer every weekend. This track is a test as large as you need a lot of confidence and to really approach the walls through the high -speed corners,” Antonelli added. “Step by step, and the more experience I get, I feel that I am starting to put everything together with more consistency. We do not advance Ourelves thinking and seeing what we can do tomorrow.
“It will be a long race and we hope we can bring some solid points home for the team.”
Can Norris recover again?
For the second consecutive Sunday, Lando Norris faces the prospects of a recovery campaign.
Last Sunday in Bahrain Norris began sixth. He reached a tremendous beginning, collecting several places shortly after the lights went out to P3, but then was summoned by a false beginning, which required him to fulfill a penalty of Fiveecond.
Ultimately, it ended third, that one could consider a strong impulse of recovery that gives Givven. But the false starting penalty could have cost him a chante to win even more ground on the track and in the classification.
Now he will have some Chancans to collect places, and there could always be an intervention in the form of a security car or two or two, but McLaren may need to shoot the strategy dice with Norris if they are going to maximize the results in Sunay.
Advantage, Williams?
As he pointed out that he goes to this week, the midfield fight is fascinating. Only 14 points separate HAA in P5 to Sauber in P10 in the classification of the Construction Championship:
Haas: 20 points
Williams: 19 points
Aston Martin: 10 points
VCARB: 7 points
Alpine: 6 points
Sauber: 6 points
Alpine has the tiebreaker advantage in Sauber thanks to the result of the seventh place of Pierre Gasly last week in Bahrain, the best final of any team this season.
Thanks to the qualification results on Saturday, one might think that Williams has the advantage. Carlos Sainz Jr. will begin in P6, his best classification result of the season. Add to Alex Albon from P11, and Williams has a great opportunity for a two -point result.
But Sainz is not the only pilot in the center of the field that begins within the top ten. Gasly has a solid possibility of another great own result, since it will be in ninth place when the lights are raised.
Then there is Visa Cash App Racing Bulls or Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar, who begin P12 and P14, respectively. Can you work forward according to rhythm and strategy?
Williams could have the advantage of the center of the field when the lights come out on Sunday, but anything can happen on the day of the race.
Special because …
The chaos factor
Yes, the chaos factor.
The Jeddah Corniche circuit is one of the fastest street circuits in the world, and a track that punishes errors. 27 corners and imminent walls can turn a turn of glory into a disaster into an eye opening and closing, which means that the equipment prevents the intervention in the form of a security car.
Since its inception in 2021, every Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia has seen at least one security car. That was the case last year when Lance Stroll’s accident on Tour 7 took out the security car and saw most of the diving field in the wells to make its mandatory changes in the tires.
But the Saudi Arabia inaugural Grandabia in 2021 saw not only a safety car but two red flags and four periods of virtual cars.
The chaos factor could be high today, and the teams that handle the best unexpected could reign supreme.