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F1 LIVE | First free practice for the 2023 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix

F1 LIVE | First free practice for the 2023 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix

17-03-2023 12:29 Last update: 12:56
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GPblog.com

The Saudi Arabia Grand Prix gets underway with the first free practice session at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Don't miss any of the action on and off the track with this liveblog from GPblog.

LIVEBLOG | The first free practice session for the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

 

After Red Bull Racing's dominant performance in Bahrain, the question for many is whether this was circuit-specific, or will Red Bull really dominate the whole season? In the latter case, the battle for the drivers' championship will only be between Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen, and the Mexican will therefore be hoping to strike a blow in Jeddah.

Verstappen versus Perez?

Perez is known as the man who is good on street circuits, and with victories in Azerbaijan and Monaco behind his name, that is not surprising either. Still, Verstappen will not want to give away presents so early in the season. A strong teammate is nice, but the Dutchman obviously wants to win that world title himself. The same could be said on the other side of the garage. 

First free practice starts at 13:30hrs UK time, more than three hours earlier than the main sessions this weekend. As the temperature drops further towards the evening (local time), the conditions of FP1 are hardly comparable to FP2, qualifying or the race. Still, drivers and teams will want to make good use of the time to learn more about their new car on a different track.

The circuit

 
 
 
 
 
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The Jeddah track is the fastest street circuit that Formula 1 visits. Average speeds in qualifying are over 250 km/h, with drivers climbing above 310 km/h on three separate occasions during a single push lap. Over 80% of the lap is spent at full throttle, and many of the corners can be taken flat-out given the soft angle.

All three sectors are pretty quick, but the first is slightly slower with tighter turns. The first corner is particularly tight, and then the drivers have to flick the steering wheel in the opposite direction almost immediately to take the second corner. There are elongated chicanes throughout the circuit, this one is one of the tightest. To have better confidence in this sector, drivers might opt for a higher downforce setting on their cars. Going down this route should also help them during the Grand Prix because it would mean the tyres do less sliding and therefore should last longer. 

However, in the following two sectors, having a high downforce is negative. Without DRS, it becomes difficult for the cars to dump drag, and they will therefore lose time during the faster areas of the circuit. This means that during the race, when DRS isn't available regularly, a high downforce reduces performances in sectors two and three. The best sector times might allow us to identify which set-up the teams tried in the second free practice session.