Piastri in the frame for tight podium fight; rookie’s sensational day laid bare: Quali talking points

Max Verstappen was so fast in qualifying at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that he didn’t even need his second lap to take pole.

His first time was good enough to put more than 0.3 seconds on the field. He fluffed his second, lapping 0.2 seconds slower, but such was his iron grip on the sport that it didn’t matter.

Not only was his first lap good enough, but even his botched second lap would’ve secured him first place on the grid too.

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The word the Dutchman kept coming back to was ‘confidence’.

“It was a very good day,” he said. “We improved the car a little bit overnight, and that gave me a bit more confidence to attack the high-speed corners.

“Around here of course it depends a lot on your confidence level, how much you can go to the limit, and I really think today I felt very comfortable with the car.”

And how did he feel about his prospects in the race?

“I’m confident with the race pace that we have that tomorrow the car will work really well too.”

Jeddah is one of the calendar’s more mentally taxing circuits.

Though its ambitious count of 27 corners really boils down to around eight braking zones, the blind bends and the omnipresent walls demand maximum attention around the lap.

It’s why confidence is key. Anything less than full confidence and a driver is never going to get close to their optimal lap.

Confidence is what the RB20 is giving Verstappen in spades.

FERRARI AT THE HEAD OF A CLOSE BATTLE AS PIASTRI SHINES AGAIN

Charles Leclerc was flat getting out of the car in P2. His was clearly a good lap given it was enough to split Verstappen from two-time Jeddah pole-getting teammate Sergio Pérez, and he admitted that he felt he’d got the maximum from his Ferrari, but he was obviously downcast about the massive gap to Verstappen he was left with all the same.

Leclerc heads a tight upper frontrunning pack, leading Pérez by 0.016 seconds and Fernando Alonso by 0.055 seconds.

This, combined with McLaren and Mercedes, which were a little further back, is expected to form the seven-car battle for the last two podium places.

Predicted race pace — frontrunners

1. Red Bull Racing

2. Mercedes: +0.21 seconds per lap

3. Ferrari: +0.23 seconds per lap

4. McLaren: +0.24 seconds per lap

5. Aston Martin: +0.30 seconds per lap

Mercedes is the joker in the pack here though, having never completed a representative race run and having spent the entire weekend right up to the start of qualifying playing with set-up.

Lewis Hamilton reverted from a higher downforce rear wing to Russell’s low-downforce spec after FP3 but couldn’t get the most out of it.

The only reason he was so close behind Russell in qualifying was that the young Briton set his fastest lap on used tyres before botching his sole flyer on fresh rubber at the end of the session. Correcting for tyre usage would have put him in the mix with McLaren.

It means the nominally faster cars are out of position — Mercedes at the back, Alonso near the front.

But despite Saudi’s high-speed nature and three DRS zones, it’s still a street track, which puts a premium on track position.

This is especially so in a one-stop race, with only one window to try to pass with strategy through the pit lane.

That gives Alonso and the McLaren drivers a strong chance of scoring big.

Oscar Piastri was excellent in qualifying, beating Norris around the treacherous Jeddah streets for the second season in a row in another superb display of his raw speed.

He’ll be hoping for a better start than last year’s first-lap melee, and from there he’ll have a golden shot at applying some pressure for the podium, though he was keeping expectations in check.

“I’m honestly pretty happy,” Piastri said after qualifying fifth. “I think that was pretty much the most we could’ve got out of that session.

“I think maybe we can take the fight to Aston Martin and Fernando. Mercedes are also going to be quick behind us.

“Red Bull and Ferrari are too far ahead, bit we’ll see.”

McLaren in particular must fancy its chances given both Piastri and Norris opted for high-downforce set-ups. It’s made both slow down the straights relative to Mercedes, which could be a vulnerability, but it should give them better tyre usage and therefore more flexibility around strategy.

That could be crucial given the high chance of a safety car will figure in every team’s strategy calculations given it almost halves the pit stop time.

Every previous race here has featured a safety car, and you’d be brave to bet against another one this year.

HATS OFF TO OLLIE BEARMAN

It’s difficult to overstate how impressive a job surprise rookie Oliver Bearman did in his sudden Formula 1 debut.

With Carlos Sainz being diagnosed with appendicitis and taken to surgery, F2 star Bearman had just two hours notice that he’d be jumping behind the wheel for the rest of the weekend.

The Briton, who had claimed pole in Formula 2 the day before, had never driver the SF-24 before.

The jump between the categories is massive.

Bearman’s pole time in F2 was 1m 42.217s, an average speed of 217.44 kilometres per hour.

His very first flying lap for FP3 was 1m 33.113s, an improvement of more than nine seconds straight out of the box.

His fastest F1 qualifying time dropped that to 1m 28.642s — fully 13.575 seconds faster than his F2 pole at an average speed of 250.74 kilometres per hour.

The Jeddah Corniche Circuit would be at the bottom of the list of tracks a driver would want to step up at without notice. It comprises a ridiculous 27 corners, almost all of them taken at high speed. The walls are right in on the circuit pretty much everywhere, meaning even the smallest mistake can mete out serious punishment.

But Bearman took it all in his stride.

Not only did he qualify 11th, but he got to within 0.036 seconds of displacing Hamilton for a spot in Q3.

It was a mighty effort.

His entry in the race tomorrow at 18 years, 10 months and 1 day old will make him the third youngest debutant in Formula 1 history behind Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll.

He’ll be the youngest driver ever to race for Ferrari in a grand prix and the first to make his debut for the fabled Italian team since Arturo Merzario, who entered his first race with the Scuderia at the 1972 British Grand Prix.

What can we expect from Bearman on Saturday?

Despite Jeddah being a mentally draining circuit to race on, it comes with the benefit of being gentle on the tyres. That eliminates the crucial performance differentiator of tyre management, which is always difficult for rookies to pick up.

This will likely be a one-stop grand prix featuring the medium and hard compounds.

His focus therefore needs to be on nailing the multitude of new procedures required by his new car and new team. Strategy can still move him forward in what is the second quickest car in the sport.

Walking away from Jeddah with a few points will be more than just a job well done; it will earn him an urgent place in the 2025 driver market.

A final nod too to Carlos Sainz, who completed 50 laps of practice on Friday. He didn’t realise at the time that he had appendicitis, but the grit required to have entered those sessions in what must have been considerable discomfort — and to look competitive — must have been immense.

WHAT HAPPENED TO DANNY RIC?

For the second weekend in a row Daniel Ricciardo found himself on the receiving end of a qualifying beating dished out by Yuki Tsunoda.

But unlike in Bahrain, where the margin was slim, this weekend’s gap was enormous.

Tsunoda fulfilled RB’s pace promise by cracking the top 10 with a lap 0.461 seconds quicker than his teammate’s best effort.

It was a mystifyingly large gap after the pair was closely matched after Q1.

“Not good,” Ricciardo said. “It kind of fell away from us.

“I think we got out there in Q1 and the first couple of laps were okay. I think we knew there was some time.

“But in trying to get that time, it simply plateaued. Even if I had another set now I don’t think I’d go any quicker, honestly.

“That’s a little bit the confusing part for now, so we’ll have a look.

“I was feeling quite good actually in the car and was pretty upbeat about having a good session, so it’s not a good one.

“We’ve got a couple of ideas of where some is, but sure a frustrating session.”

Ricciardo barely improved between Q1 and Q2, finding just 0.04s between sessions while Tsunoda improved by more than 0.4 seconds.

Telemetry shows Ricciardo struggled particularly badly in the first sector, especially through the tricky turn 4-5-6 sequence.

Ricciardo’s lack of improvement at least backs up the suggestion that the car or the conditions got away from him, but the big gap to Tsunoda will sting, especially ahead of a grand prix that’s expected to be a slog for RB, which is forecast to be the third slowest car in the field.