Toto Talks Saudi Arabia
Our race in Bahrain was best described as underwhelming. We were hopeful of a stronger showing after our performance in practice and qualifying. Both drivers were pleased with the balance earlier in the weekend, and the more stable platform provided by the W15. Unfortunately on Saturday evening, our cooling performance didn't match our predictions. That forced us into management mode early on, which had the knock-on impact of reducing tyre temperatures below optimum. That cost us the opportunity to show something closer to our true potential. It was a frustrating way to start the season but one we will learn from.
We’ve got an opportunity to take a step forward immediately. Jeddah is a street track with a lot of high-speed content. It will be good to continue our learning with the new car on a very different circuit to Bahrain. We will be aiming for a more consistent weekend and to understand our true performance relative to the rest of the grid.
It will also be great to see F1 Academy on the support bill in Saudi Arabia for their opening round. For the first time, we will be involved as a team. We’re excited to watch our junior driver Doriane Pin in action and look forward to supporting the championship across the year.
Fact File: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is held on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, located in a waterfront area next to the Red Sea.
The location presents similar challenges to Abu Dhabi with sand blowing onto the track and changes in wind direction from day to night.
The Jeddah Corniche Circuit has the most corners of any track on the F1 calendar with 27: 16 left and 11 right.
It is also the second-longest track we visit at 6.174km. Energy management across the lap is therefore tricky and puts more focus on the MGU-H and hybrid system performance.
With numerous long straights, drivers spend over 70% of the lap at full throttle and the circuit is ranked third in terms of time spent, and distance covered, using this metric.
There are six braking events across the lap with two of those designated as ‘heavy’.
Turn 13 has a 12% gradient, with banked corners opening up more lines and helping to build momentum onto the next sweeping, high-speed section.
Turn 2 is the slowest corner on the circuit, taken around 80 km/h, whilst the quickest are Turns 20, 21, and 26 which are taken at close to or over 300 km/h.
Sensitivity, which describes where you find lap time, is biased very strongly towards high-speed corner performance.
Owing to its nature as a street circuit, Jeddah has a high risk of incidents leading to Safety Cars. Across the three previous races in Saudi Arabia, there have been four full Safety Car periods, and two red flags.
Several track changes were made for the 2023 race in order “to deliver smoother, safer, and even more exciting racing.”
These included:
‘Rumble Lines’ – which cause traction to be lost and thus slowing cars down were added at Turns 3, 14, 19, 20, and 21.
Steel kerbs replaced bevelled kerbs at Turns 4, 8, 10, 11, 17, and 23.
Driver sightlines were improved with the fence wall moved back at Turns 14 and 20 by 7.5m and 5m respectively.
The fence wall at Turns 8 and 10 was also adjusted to improve visibility of the corner ahead.
Turns 22 and 23 were amended with the fence at Turn 23 adjusted and a bevelled kerb added – that helped reduce speeds by approximately 50 km/h
This is the fourth Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, there have been three different winners from the first three editions of the event – Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen, and Sergio Perez.
Lewis’ 103rd and most recent victory was in Jeddah in 2021.
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix first appeared on the calendar as the penultimate race of the season in 2021, but has been the second race on the calendar for the last two seasons.
This will be the 42nd Formula One Grand Prix to be held in the Middle East.
