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FP1 is in the books.

A few observations.... Not going well for Magnussen and Haas, with hydraulic leaks causing him to sit in the garage for the entire session. That really hurts as he has no experience on the Jeddah circuit.

Track is dusty, there's some wind, and it's day time, when the race will be at night.

Leclerc fastest by a tenth over Max. The harder compounds are looking good here. Pirelli brought the medium compound range. Folks new to F1 might not realize there are just five compounds, C1 through C5, but they get re-striped as soft/medium/hard depending on which range is selected. In other words, the C3 compound is a 'soft tire' when using the softest range, but the C3 is the 'hard tire' when the hardest range is selected. This week we are on the middle range, so C3 is the medium tire.

Merc struggling still. More bouncing and I think they were hoping that would be better with a much smoother surface.

Alpha Tauri showing the pace that made me place them third in my preseason ratings.

McLaren looking a little better. That won't be hard to do.

On to FP2....

There's been an explosion at an oil facility near the track. About 10 miles away, near the airport.

That explosion was an attack. F1 unaffected thus far and plans to proceed as scheduled.

Three-tenths covered all of the Ferraris and Red Bulls in FP2, with Merc a half-second off the pace.

Both Ferrari drivers hit the wall near the end and shut it down having not got much full-load testing done under the night time conditions.

Reliability issues for AR, but they looked fast when able to lap. McLaren looked much better, at least Lando did. Ricciardo still trying to catch up.

Organizers, drivers and F1 officials had a long meeting late last night and it was decided to continue with the event despite the attack on the nearby oil facility. As if we needed another reason not to race in Saudi Arabia. F1 needs to get out and stay out. Politics and danger (track and weapon attacks) aside though, this is shaping up to be a great race. I hope my fears prove theoretical and we have a safe race.

Ferrari and Red Bull are so tight for pace, qualifying should be stellar. Merc are closing the gap and other teams are looking good too, maybe McLaren can score? Red Bull need good results from both cars to get back in this thing.

Come on Max!

Wow, what a session! .098 covers the top three (Leclerc, Max, Checo), with Sainz nearly three-tenths back.

Alpha Tauri look very fast but brittle. Gasly has terrible luck.

Bottas again quick, fifth in the session. Good thing, as AR are my constructor in the fantasy league. I took a gamble, since they were so cheap at the start of the year, but so far it's looking great.

Merc 11th and 14th, which is surprising. All of the Mercedes-powered cars are struggling. Whatever McLaren found yesterday they lost. Disappointing from them. Williams face a long season.

No changes to fantasy lineup this week. Good luck rollnloop! Hard to believe no one else has joined up, but that's SimHQ in the 2020's.

Perez on pole, ahead of Leclerc, Sainz and Verstappen.

Schumi Jr with a big crash. This track is unsafe and I won't stop saying it.

Hamilton out in Q1 for the first time in dry conditions since Brazil 2017. He has it all to do just to finish in the points. But Russell was fast enough to take P6, so I would think they'll just set the car up differently (like Russell's) and he should move up during the race. Still a shock to see this.

Glad to see Checo up front. That helps Red Bull in a big way and puts the brakes on Ferrari, at least momentarily. Max in fourth isn't ideal, but let's see what he can do in the race.

Godawful crash at a godawful track in a godawful country.

And never mind the missiles flying over head- I'm sure that Saudi Arabia's enemies would never dare interrupt one of their crown jewel sporting events.
Of course, if you dare protest you might not be allowed to leave the country:



https://www.planetf1.com/news/drivers-consequences-of-not-racing-saudi-arabia/

No mention during today's broadcast of the missile attack or the drivers threat to boycott the race that was only averted after a marathon four hour meeting, unless I missed it.
We have to remember that the Sky commentators are not journalists, they are paid representatives of Formula One who know not to bite the hand that feeds them.

And meanwhile, there's no German Grand Prix.

I love Formula One, but the political structure of F1 reeks like a rotten fish.

Well if that's true, that they were strong-armed in to racing, and they otherwise would have decided to cancel, then that's a big problem. If that's the case they'd need to make changes after they leave. Can't have that. But I'm getting vibes that the teams want to race and feel assured. Is it putting on a good face? I guess we'll see. That curt "They will be on track" answer seems telling though.

I want to see Red Bull score good points tomorrow and they're in a good position to do so. But really I just want to see a safe race and on to the next one.

I want to see this event canceled, irregardless of, and prior to, what occurred this weekend. But they just signed a long extension I think, wasn't that announced a few weeks ago? And the FIA head is Emirati. Not sure about Emirati-Saudi relations, but I'd suspect they are tight and mutually profitable. Russia's gone, now do Saudi Arabia and China. There are plenty of great tracks in better places to hold events. Like Docjonel said, there's no German Grand Prix. Hockenheim, the Ring. Go back to swapping them each year. Or add them both. Maybe that's not all down to F1 though.

I don't expect anything to change in the short term, if tomorrow goes without trouble. But let's see what comes out once they've flown out.

Yes, would be happy to see Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia off the schedule for good.
If Formula One portrayed itself as the money-making business it is that would be a more honest approach. But these hypocritical attempts at virtue signaling (#WeRaceAsOne) really turn me off.
Also, I see no reason why a group at war with Saudi Arabia would not at least be tempted to ruin SA's prize event by lobbing a missile that way during the race.
F1 has a made a deal with the devil, so to speak. Let's see how this turns out.
Finally, I hope for a safe race tomorrow. This course does not speak to "Safety First."

Agreed.

Part of the problem I think is elitist views like Toto Wolf's, who said that F1 can make the Middle East a better place. I'd tone that down a few notches. But I'd imagine he's not alone at the top of F1 thinking F1 can change the world.

I awoke to several reports where the drivers are being quoted as saying that they want to have F1 review participation and presence in Saudi Arabia. That's a clear problem for Formula 1. It will be interesting what comes out once they've left the country.

There have been massive investments in this event. It won't be a simple matter to extract themselves from it. But yeah, the vibe I'm getting today is this event is in doubt for the future, and rightly so. MBS' sports-washing effort will take a hit, but so what?

Great race, and no serious incidents.

But yeah, this is really good stuff this year. The new cars are delivering. The order's more jumbled, and the two fastest teams are perfectly matched, nothing between them.

Well done to Max, he ran a great race. I watched his in-car for nearly the entire time on the PC. He was complaining about Leclerc crossing the pit lane entrance line, so I began to worry he'd feel hard done by, see a bit of red mist and risk too much. But he was remarkably calm. Both he and Leclerc were just nailing those laps over the tail end of the race. Purple after purple. Both would have been worthy winners today, but Max did just enough. At the end he said "F*ckin' hell, that was good' like I'd describe finding out the mail's been delivered. So calm, matter of fact. He was loving the action. He and Leclerc are at the top of their games. That's a really difficult track.

Tough luck for Checo, who had been driving a great race in the lead. It's the jeopardy you face as the leader, since you cannot react to your rival, while the second place car can. Here it was a dramatic backfire, and that's just bad luck. But also Ferrari played it perfectly and it paid off. Latifi has a habit of re-ordering race results lately

I'm happy that Red Bull are on the board now, and as great as last season was, surely the best F1 season I've ever watched, this one is shaping up to be even better. Not just the title fight, but the actual racing on the track all down the order. The off track stuff is still to be discussed, but forgetting that for a moment, I thought today's race was brilliant, and there's 21 more of these to come.

rollnloop got me by 17 points this week in fantasy, 178-161. My drivers did OK, but Alfa Romeo didn't score in the race and that killed me. Ferrari scored big and that was the difference. Congrats on your win and on to the next one!

Thanks !

What a season we have on our plate, yummy

Yeah, Alfa killed me. Bottas was on pace for a sixth probably before retiring. Zhou finished 11th, so also out of the points, but just. That's a really difficult track and he's a rookie making his first race here so not too concerned about the result other than letting rollnloop beat me

The C42 obviously has pace this year and I expect better results, especially if they can get a handle on their reliability. It's a shame Kimi retired a year too soon. I'd love to see him fighting in the midfield again.

I'm thrilled that the new car design is working out so well.

The increased down force retention has changed the racing. I want to talk a little about how the announcers kept acting like discovering that it was better to wait for the second of back-to-back DRS zones to make the pass was some sort of revelation. I mean it was immediately obvious with Max and Leclerc's first battle at Bahrain. I'm sitting there thinking it is sort of racing 101 to see this, but they were talking like this was some sort of brilliant discovery.

Because cars can now trail more closely in less-dirty air, being in front is a little less advantage now than it used to be. That allows the trailing car to bide his time through the first DRS zone, stick on the exhaust and make the move for the following DRS zone. We're going to see this a lot this year. A little chess out on track. Monza should be a trip.

SimHQ is not the place to discuss Formula 1. It's great to write about it, but not much in the way of analysis or opinion is there? Well, thanks to the few who participate.

Another thing I wanted to bring up is FIA's abysmal performance yesterday in regards to the Perez-Sainz issue after the safety car. Sainz beat him to the line, position belongs to Sainz. End of.

I saw one replay, not even from the best angle, at full speed and it was clear that Sainz was first over the line. At this point F1 should have been clear in instructing Perez to give up the place. This should have been done within 30 seconds, maybe a minute if they want to look at it a few times to be sure. That wasn't needed as it was so clear. But OK, you want to take your time.

But I don't think they ever made a ruling. This happened on lap 16 I think. By the restart, lap 21, I still don't think a ruling had been made and Red Bull gave the spot back on their own. Even if it was the FIA's call, why did it take five laps under a safety car to do it, and then only once the race had gone green again? This should have been sorted within one lap at most. They made a big deal out of their new VAR-type bunker in Switzerland, how this was supposed to help this type of situation, and makes these sorts of rulings faster and correct, to help take some of the load off the race director.

So where were they? Whatever the VAR-bunker is supposed to do it failed yesterday. The FIA has little margin for error this year. They need to get calls right and fast. Yesterday they failed.

What I got is that they were too slow to decide, and when they did the restart was about to happen, so they were concerned the drivers would get the message at the worst moment and mess up the restart.

About DRS, it's just another tactic. maybe next year they will scrap one of the DRS zones, maybe move the detection zone, whatever, they'll solve it.

It was a great race to watch, season will be epic, just enjoy the show

Well yes, that is what happened. My point is it shouldn't take five laps at safety car speed to reach that decision. Especially with the VAR bunker. This is what that was implemented for. It probably helped Red Bull as Sainz couldn't go after Max at the re-start, but regardless of who benefited, it took far too long to reach such a simple decision that everyone watching knew straight away.

Also, I don't trust Alfa this much. Bottas is an OK qualifyer but a mediocre overtaker, and Zhou is a rookie. So even with a good car I don't feel they'll do much more than occasionally score points.

"So, who's going to win the next race? Let's ask Nicholas Latifi.
Nic, who are you choosing to win in Melbourne?"

"Well, Martin, I haven't decided yet. I'm going to see how the race progresses and wait until the final 5 laps before I make my decision."

How even the last place driver can influence the race.

I'm feeling OK about it. AR are showing competitive pace for the midfield battle. Zhou admittedly is a wildcard, but Jeddah is really difficult and he'll have had experience at some of the remaining tracks from the lower leagues. He also had a pair of drive-throughs. By taking AR as my constructor it allowed me the funds to take Max. As long as they score I should be fine, and I expect them to do so on a regular basis this year, if the reliability can be improved. retirements are particularly costly in fantasy.

As for Latifi, yeah, as I said a few posts back he has a habit of re-ordering race results. His crash in the race was driver error. You can see him steer straight in to the wall. He was taken by surprise when he lost grip and his reactions were wrong and he drove straight in to the wall.

Next up is a return to Albert Park, 10 April. The track has been altered, I'll have to see what was done, but I think they straightened it out around turns 11 and 12. Good thing too because I rarely nail that section in the sim haha.