And so we move across the desert from Bahrain to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea for the 2nd race of the 2024 Grand Prix circuit. It is the 4th year on this track, and this GP is a night "street race". Btw, As of this writing, Christian Horner, Principal at Red Bull, still has his job! Practice 1 (P1) was pretty uneventful, other than the cross-winds at certain turns, which there are 27 turns (a couple of elevations- looking at you, turn 11 and 12!) on this 3.4 mile race track. Biggest excitement was near the hour long practice was the number of black plastic bags swirling around the track, and particualrly Ferrari's Charles LeClerc's suspension near end of the practice. Practice 2 (P2), was held at night, and the track looked gorgeous under the lights, but there where a 15 minute race delay due to the gremlin of street track racing, loose drainage covers in the pit lane! We learned that Ferrari's other driver, Carlos Sainz, is struggling with a stomach bug, which explained why he did only a few laps of practice so he can rest up for tomorrows P3 and Qualifying ( he did look green around the gills). Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes was having rear wing problems, and his teammate, George Russell was getting too much bounce from the car (happens when you driving a sleek, highly aerodynamic race car at 200MPH on a smooth surface). Best radio line of the night came from McLaren's Lando Norris, who radioed in, "Too much bottoming, not good!" (I'll pause for a moment), which in RACING terms means the bottom/floor of his car was dragging on the track. Last note on P2, is some of those turns, especially 11 and 12 that are elevated, made for some WHOA moments. Also last turn 27, one driver did scrap the wall, as several others came close, part of the problem there was the aforementioned cross-wind. P3 day started off with a shocker! Turns out it wasn't a stomach bug that was ailing Sainz, but he was driving yesterday with a swollen appendix, and is in the hospital, which means Ferrari has replaced him with one of their F2 (minor leagues for Formula One) rookie drivers, Oliver Bearman, making his F1 Grand Prix debut and has now bumped old man 20 year old Oscar Piastri of McLaren as the youngest driver on the track at 18 years old! A British driver racing for Ferrari!?! Perhaps Ollie and Lewis Hamilton will have a chat! As for the P3 practice itself, it WAS pretty mild, with all eyes on Bearman to see how he would conduct himself, and the lad did pretty darn good. But with 19 minutes to go, Zhou Guanyu of Sauber took turn 7 at 160 MPH, lost control of the car and crashed into the barriers. Zhou is ok, but the car...we shall see later this evening, if it can be repaired (it looked messy to me, though!). Red flag was out as Zhou's car was removed, but there was three minutes left when red flag was lifted, so drivers got to get in their laps with the soft tyres, that had not before the red flag. Bearman placed 10th, which was quite respectable placement for the youngest driver to drive for Ferrari in their long-storied history.
Rookie Ferrari driver Oliver Bearman
A note on how Qualifying works: There are three quick races to determine grid position for the GP on Saturday. First Quali the last five drivers are cut, second quali again, last five drivers dropped, and 3rd and final quali determines the top ten on the grid and the ever important pole (1st) position.
Before we get into Qualifying, some big news dropped after P3 per ESPN and multiple media outlets, Audi will take 100% control of Swiss-based Sauber ahead of its transformation into the German carmaker's factory Formula One team from 2026, the Volkswagen-owned brand said on Friday. (Personal note- I did not know that Volkswagon owned Audi!). Big news indeed for Formula One racing!
Into the qualis we go! On the first Q1, at 17 minutes, and 77 degrees/97 degrees track temperature, winds at around 12MPH, Mercedes drivers Hamilton and Russell only drivers using the medium tyres, but on 2nd lap, switched back to soft tyres. Last turn (27), has been a beast, with some cars scraping the wall there. The Sauber team did everything they could putting Zhou's car together, and actually got it on track, but it was seconds to late to qualify.
Bottom five: Bottas/Sauber, Ocon/Alpine, Gasly/Alpine, Sargent/Williams, and Zhou/Sauber.
Things are pretty woeful at Alpine these days! And yes, these are the same drivers who finished last in qualifying in Bahrain last week.
Q2: 15 minutes of racing. at the 11 minute mark, red flag came out as Haas Nico Hulkenberg engine just stopped and he got off track into a safe space. After the red flag lifted, no other incidents to report other than the bottom five: Bearman/Ferrari (will be in P11, not bad for the rookie who got the call this morning!), Albon/Williams, Magnussen/Haas, Riccardo/RB and Hulkenberg/Haas.
Q3: Our last ten drivers fighting for pole position (P1) in eleven minutes of racing.With no incidents, for the 5th consecutive qualifying race in a row, Red Bull's Max VerStappen and Ferrari's Charles LeClerc are on the front row.
Here is the starting grid for Saturday's Saudi Arabia Grand Prix!
It's LIGHTS OUT time for Saudi Grand Prix 2024 50 laps, warm weather, light winds, good track racing conditions! Almost all drivers, except Bearman and Bottas who are starting with soft tyres, will be starting on the mediums for the first part of the race. Also just learned that this Jennah track has the most turns (27) and 2nd fastest on the GP circuit! Here is a picture of how gorgeous this track looks at night:
On the first lap, Alpine told Gasly to "retire the car" which means he is out of the race a DNF (Did Not Finish) is what you will see on the scorecard. Seems the gear box wasn't behaving. On Lap 7, Aston Martin's Lance Stroll skidded on turn 24 and hit the barrier. He is ok, but he and his car is out of this race. Yellow flag up as most teams elected to do a pit stop, and change over to the hard tyre. Alonso had the worst pit stop time of 8.7 seconds (2.3 is the average), due to the other cars pitting in front of him, and Red Bull's Perez making a scary pit exit in front of Alonso. The race stewards (judges) agreed it was an unsafe pit exit, and have penalized Perez with a five second penalty, which will be applied at end of the race. On Lap 13, Haas Magnussen tapped William's Albon's car, which caused Albon to lose a couple of places in the standings, and the stewards slapped a ten second penalty on Magnussen. Magnussen also radioed in that he thinks he has floor damage. Ollie update after 20 laps- the Ferrari rookie has done several overtakes and is now in 9th place!
And once again, Red Bull's Max Verstappen finishes 1st, with his teammate Perez 2nd (penalty not applied), and Charles LaClerc rounds out the podium in 3rd place. The big story though is the young babe Ollie Bearman, who 38 hours ago was getting ready to race in F2 racing, has earned Ferrari points with his 7th place finish, and was named Driver of the Day by the fan vote! Well done, Ollie!
Carlos Sainz, minus an appendix, was in the paddock cheering on Ollie, and has said he will be ready to race in Melbourne in two weeks!
Thanks to TSN, I have a brief race cap video of what you mostly just read! Enjoy!
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