Free practice: The competition week is held as usual in spite of the air strikes Leclerc, Verstappen continue to fight fiercely
F1 provides 60 minutes each for teams and drivers to adjust their cars in 3 periods this week, including Friday evening, evening and Saturday evening. The relevant lap results will be used as a reference for setting and strategy; as Vettel has not yet passed the latest A round of PCR screening, so the Aston Martin team finalized before the start of free practice to continue to be represented by reserve driver Hulkenberg.
The first practice period can be said to be a continuation of the opening game in Bahrain. Red Bull and Ferrari continue to be the leaders. However, this time the two AlphaTauri drivers and the boss of the Alfa Romeo team, Bottas, also tried to join the battle. When it comes to the racing mechanism, he only got 2 laps of mileage, which is better than nothing. At the same time, the oil refinery on the outskirts of Jeddah was attacked by local armed forces, making the safety issue of the race immediately a topic of discussion.
The second practice session in the evening started 15 minutes later than the scheduled time in a situation full of unease. Although Leclerc continued the momentum of the first practice session and delivered the fastest lap, he and his teammate Sainz and the track guards did not. There was obvious contact with the wall and the work was stopped early. At the same time, Kakuda, who was practicing in the first quarter, was also parked on the side of the track due to a problem with the power unit.
After the temporary marathon meeting, although the FIA, FOM and the competition decided to continue the competition under the security guarantee of the Saudi government, the third quarter practice on Saturday was still difficult to hide the shadow of anxiety. In such an environment, Leclerc and Verstappen were still fighting fiercely in the arena, and handed over a lap that was almost indistinguishable.
Q1: Mercedes’ power camp continues to struggle, and Hamilton is knocked out
The qualifying race using the three-quarter elimination system will start at 20:00 track time on time. Q1 will use 18 minutes to eliminate the five slowest drivers and arrange for the 16th-20th overall to participate in the start of the final. Jeddah, who has lit up the lighting equipment The track temperature was a comfortable 23 degrees Celsius and the track temperature was 25 degrees Celsius.
Due to the great variability of the venue, Williams and Alfa Romeo arranged drivers to confirm the venue soon after the opening of the track. Ferrari, Haas, McLaren and other teams quickly followed up, although soft tires will be the mainstream of qualifying. tires, but Mercedes decided to use medium tires to challenge.
After a warm-up lap, Magnussen, Norris, Ricciardo and Russell, who crossed the line first, set an initial result in the middle of 1 minute and 30 seconds. However, at the countdown to 12 minutes, Latifi slipped and hit the retaining wall at turn 13. Accidentally, the race team waved the red flag to interrupt the race. At this time, half of the 11 drivers in the race had completed the bottoming.
Although the accident site was located at the entrance and exit of the track operation, Latifi’s car could be quickly removed, but because the staff needed to check the damage to the retaining wall, the race did not resume the rest of the race until 20:14. This accident also made the original race still in. The AlphaTauri and Alpine teams who were adjusted in the pit area joined the driver group Bottas and other drivers who had not yet handed over the time, which made the track suddenly rush.
After the warm-up lap, the leaderboard quickly turned into a situation in which Red Bull and the Red Army competed for the first place, making it difficult for other competitors to match. Among them, Sainz became the first driver to break the threshold of 1 minute 28 seconds this week. , Hamilton was still struggling after returning to the race, only 13th on the edge of the elimination circle with a lap time of nearly 1.7 seconds behind, and was pushed to the elimination circle with 3 minutes to go.
Sainz finally took the top spot in Q1 with a difference of about 0.08 seconds. Except for Kakuda, who was unable to deliver the results due to the unresolved power unit problem, and Latifi, who slammed into the wall and retired, the other three drivers all belonged to the Mercedes-powered camp. Among them, the most popular The shock is none other than Hamilton, who was squeezed out by Stroll at the last minute. This is the first time that the seven-time world champion has stopped in Q1 since the Brazilian GP stopped work early due to the replacement of the power unit in 2017.
Q2: Sainz continues to top the list Schumacher suffered a serious accident
After about 10 minutes of rest, Q2 will use 15 minutes to continue to eliminate the slowest 5 drivers, and arrange to participate in the 11-15th place to participate in the start of the final. Just like the situation in Q1, the exit of the pit lane changes to a green light. A number of drivers have been stuck before, and the Haas team took the lead in testing the time.
Schumacher, Magnussen and Ricciardo who crossed the line first all handed over a marginal result of 1 minute and 30 seconds, but Leclerc quickly set a high standard of 1 minute and 28 seconds, and attracted Sainz, Perez and Verstappen to follow up quickly. Although Alonso was in the first round He finished fifth after the time-test, but he had a fairly clear 0.5-second gap with Leclerc, who was temporarily ahead.