Reverse Plot Twist — Formula 1 Saudi Arabian GP 2023
If I was still racing in #F1 I’d really enjoy the Jeddah circuit: super quick, flat out circuit which does not forgive mistakes. — Mika Hakkinen on Twitter.
Jeddah Corniche Circuit is the second longest circuit on the Formula 1 calendar after Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, with a track length of 6.174 km. Being a circuit with the highest number of corners (27 in total), the Jeddah circuit is the fastest street circuit with average speeds exceeding 250km/h. It’s a typical circuit with fast, twisty corners which is a new character on the F1 calendar since 2021.
I watched almost every session this weekend, except for the race! Quite frustrating to fall asleep before the race started and wake up after it was all over. Kudos to the people who were in the same timezone as me and were able to watch the race that started at 00.00 pm.
Free Practice 1 — Practice and adjustment.
This session is used by the drivers to practice (obviously!) and make the right car settings. There wasn’t much to highlight other than each driver trying to push their cars and providing feedback to their teams. What I mean by “push the cars”, is certainly not using the full power of the engine. This seems to be what all teams do in practice to hide their true strength in qualifying and the race and preserve the power unit.
Max Verstappen is amazing! He set the best time in the first practice session of 1:29.617, a gap of almost 0.5 seconds to second place, Sergio Perez. The Aston Martin duo followed in third and fourth, followed by the Mercedes duo in fifth and sixth. Looking at this next team, I’d like to say:
For all the Ferrari fans, stay calm, it’s just a practice session. Maybe Ferrari just detune their engine to maintain reliability (we hoped so!).
Since we don’t really know what mode each team used and what program it ran, it wouldn’t hurt to take a detailed look at the fastest lap data for each driver.
In the graph, we can see how each driver compares relative to the others.
- If the top speed is high and the lap time is faster, it indicates a well-balanced car or an efficient drag and downforce setup (upper right quadrant).
- If the top speed is low and the lap time is faster, it indicates that the car has high drag and also generates high downforce for cornering (upper left quadrant).
- If the top speed is high but the lap time is slower, this indicates that the car has low drag but does not generate good downforce (lower right quadrant).
- If the top speed is low and the lap time is slower, it is an indication that the car is unbalanced in the setup due to high drag but does not generate good downforce (lower left quadrant).
Then, I hypothesized that the lowest speed in each lap would indicate whether or not there was still room for improvement in the lap time, or may also be influenced by driving style. So I also included the data for the lowest speed in the graph as well.
As we can see in the graph:
- Red Bull was the most balanced car as it is in the upper right quadrant.
- The Aston Martin duo were in the upper left quadrant, indicating that the cars have high drag and high downforce.
- Looking at Williams with the number 2 top speed after Redbull, it had a lot of potential if development focused on aerodynamics in generating downforce.
- Mercedes and Ferrari are relatively in the middle, close to the average line. Probably not an all-out result in this first practice.
- Alpine didn’t seem to be at their best, judging by the slowest speed. It looks like they were still in the trial and error phase for this track. But they still have to find new settings to develop their aerodynamics and improve their lap times.
- The Haas and Alphatauri duo looked more ordinary.
- Alfa Romeo looks pretty good when you see that their slowest speed was relatively high, but their car set-up lacked balance.
- Finally, if McLaren want to compete with other teams, they need to make a significant development.
And here’s a graph to show how each Team averaged.
That’s all for Free Practice 1. We’ll see some interesting things in Free Practice 2.
Free Practice 2 — Experimentation and simulation.
This session is an opportunity for each driver and team to simulate qualifying and the race. They can describe the conditions they will face on Saturday and Sunday in terms of time of day, weather conditions, tarmac temperature and so on, as the qualifying and race times are the same at 20:00 local time.
A glance at the result:
Ferrari… are you okay?
Being in 9th and 10th place was not a good sign. We didn’t know what they were doing behind the scenes, but come on. We want to see Ferrari at the top in every session. Maybe they are still hiding their strengths, but… who knows?
Redbull topped the standings, separated by Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso. Look at Alpine! His effort in this session was better than the previous one. Mercedes looked competitive with George Russell in 5th place, but it looked like Lewis Hamilton was struggling with gap about 0.5 seconds from his teammate.
The first half of the session looked like a qualifying simulation. Take a closer look at the fastest lap data for each driver.
It’s pretty spread out among all the drivers.
- It seems quite confirming to say that the redbull car is a complete package.
- Alpine is promising. It looks like their car development is heading towards the character of Aston Martin cars.
- Aston Martin and Mercedes were still in line with expectations. Except for Lewis Hamilton, who seemed to be struggling.
- Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg was the fastest, same as William’s Alex Albon. Was he trying a low drag setup?
- McLaren looks better! Or maybe it’s the talent of Lando Norris that could bring out the potential of his car, which was less competitive than other teams.
- Alphatauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck De Vries cars were seen using a setup with high drag. Their top speed dropped by approximately 10 km/h, making their cars less competitive.
- Williams and Haas were the same as before.
- No comment for Ferrari..
Then the second half of the session looked like a race simulation. We are going to see race pace from the long runs of some drivers.
- Redbull was clearly the best.
- Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso on medium seemed to be better than Lance Stroll on soft. Seen from the bar height, was Stroll struggling with tire wear?
- Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz on the soft looked faster than Charles Leclerc on the medium. In contrast to Redbull and Aston Martin.
- Alpine was able to beat Mercedes. Hopefully the race will be their reward.
- McLaren’s Oscar Piastri looked much better on hard tyre than Lando Norris on soft tyre (with an average lap time gap of almost 0.4s). But still their pace was not enough when compared to the fastest (more than 0.5s).
Interestingly, based on the graph, there seems to be a uniqueness between the teams. Ferrari did better on softer tyres, while redbull and aston martin did better on harder tyres. Take a look at the degradation of these 3 teams.
Looking at the graph is even more confusing.
- Fernando Alonso on medium tyres was faster than Lance Stroll on soft tyres. But the degradation rate of the medium tyre is higher than soft tyre.
- Carlos Sainz on soft tyres was faster than Charles Leclerc on medium tyres. But the degradation rate of the soft tyre is higher than medium tyre.
- Sergio Perez on the medium tyre was faster than Max Verstappen on the soft tyre. But the degradation rate of the soft tyre is higher than medium tyre.
In summary, the use of tyre types will be unique to each team, depending on the car set-up and the driving style of each driver. Their use will then be regulated in the strategy and adapted to the situation and conditions.
That was the whole practice session on Friday. We’ll have free practice 3 and qualifying the next day.
Free Practice 3 — Correction and warm-up.
That’s what I would do if I were a team principal. Evaluate all the data from the previous session results, make corrections, and prepare improvements for the next session. This session is also an opportunity for each driver to warm up, improve racing line, accuracy, reactions and other factors to extract the full potential and strength of the car.
The majority of the drivers went 1:29 and the improvement looks good. Max Verstappen reached 1:28 and his time could already put him in P5 in Q3 Saudi Arabian GP 2022.
Let’s take a look at the setup effect of each driver’s fastest lap.
Wow! Max Verstappen on another planet! This makes the relative comparison between drivers more even around the average line. It can be seen from the slowest speed value that most drivers have started to push their car. Nico Hulkenberg, Guanyu Zhou and George Russell have room for improvement.
McLaren seemed to have made improvements to produce better downforce but still the dragiest car, Haas had a low drag setup but seemed no improvement in downforce, and Alphatauri still struggled!
There is no need to hide anymore, we will see the real strength of each driver in the qualifying session.
Qualifying — True power.
This is the long-awaited session. After watching all the practice sessions, spectators will be treated to an exciting and fierce battle between drivers. All teams are trying to give their best to be at the front of the grid.
Q1
Max Verstappen showed his ability by taking the lead by almost 0.5 seconds ahead of Sergio Perez in second place. Below them is the Aston Martin duo, followed by (feeling relieved) Ferrari in fifth and sixth.
Haas’ Nico Hulkenberg was a beast! Could lead Haas to 7th in Q1. Next, the Mercedes duo was separated by the impressive drive of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyou.
Oscar Piastri! Amazingly brought McLaren to 11th place. But not his unfortunate teammates, Lando Norris. His first lap time was not so good. On his second attempt, he hit the barrier and damaged the left front steering arm. The team couldn’t get Lando back on track, so he had to settle for waiting in the garage.
Logan Sargeant, would have put Williams into Q2 had his first lap attempt not been wiped out. The stewards saw him cross the pit lane line, so his lap was invalidated. However, the lap record he had is from his second attempt, which was messed up by a spinning incident at Turn 22. With a lap time of 2:08.510, he was over the 107% fastest lap time limit and his qualifying status became Not Classified. He should not have been able to race, but after Williams tried to negotiate with the stewards, he was allowed to race.
From the Q1 results, those eliminated were Yuki Tsunoda (Alphatauri), Alex Albon (Williams), Nyck De Vries (Alphatauri), Lando Norris (McLaren), and Logan Sargeant (Williams).
Q2
Disaster for Max Verstappen! Just as he was about to try a fast lap in Q2, he had a problem with the engine. He was able to put his car on a slow pace until he returned to the pits. The Red Bull mechanics were unable to fix the problem and get Max back on track. Upon confirmation, it turned out that there was a problem with the driveshaft.
Perez is at the top of the standings and the gap between all drivers is in the range of 1.033 seconds (excluding Max Verstappen).
Alpine was able to improve their times to make it into Q3, ahead of Haas and Alfa Romeo.
Oscar Piastri, then again, could get McLaren into Q3!
From the Q1 results, those eliminated were Nico Hulkenberg (Haas), Zhou Guanyou (Alfa Romeo), Kevin Magnussen (Haas), Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), and Max Verstappen (Redbull).
Will be interesting to see Max start race from the middle of the pack.
Q3
After seeing all the sessions, we would expect Aston Martin to take second place after Redbull. But no. Charles Leclerc beat Fernando Alonso in 3rd by around 0.3 seconds! It looks like he went all out and tried to get the most out of his car.
Mercedes’ George Russell was in 4th place, ahead of Lewis Hamilton in 8th place by almost 0.5 seconds.
Alpine looked solid enough for 7th and 10th. Oscar Piastri, again and again, impressively took McLaren to 9th, the best position so far for 2023 season.
Who would have thought it would turn out like this?
In-Depth About Qualifying
If we combine the best lap records from all Q sessions, we get that Max Verstappen will be 4th! Yet that was the result of Q1. Imagine if he could attempt Q2 and Q3.
Since qualifying is fairly representative of each car’s peak performance, we will look at the setup effects.
Just confirm that the McLaren is the dragiest car. The low top speed is not enough to make it competitive. But who would have thought that Oscar Piastri could take the McLaren all the way to Q3? Maybe the special setup for this qualifying session was to increase the downforce of the car.
Redbull unleashed its fury with a very high top speed and best laptime. If we look to other teams, they still seemed trying to balance drag with the ability to generate downforce, so they sacrificed top speed on the straight track.
Out of curiosity to see the 4 fastest cars in qualifying, let’s take a look at the time delta and speed comparison.
Wow, it can be seen that Charles Leclerc could compete with Sergio Perez in the fastest corner around turn 4 to turn 10. George Russell was also able to compete with the Red Bull car around turn 4, but only temporarily and eventually fell behind. The trend of the Mercedes car gap after turn 4 is indeed getting bigger, even losing to Aston Martin. It can be seen that the Redbull car has a good setup for this Jeddah circuit.
The Aston Martin’s top speed is problematic when we look at the speed chart. Of all the speed peaks before the corners, the Aston Martin has the lowest. The difference with Red Bull is quite large, even up to 13 km/h before the last corner. But with effective downforce, the Aston Martin can compete with Ferrari and even better than Mercedes.
Race — The drama begin.
Remember what I mentioned at the beginning of this post? After a few days, I finally had some free time and was able to watch the race in Jeddah! Inevitably, social media and the internet have provided a lot of spoilers, so the experience will not be the same as watching it live.
Did I mention this before this? Charles Leclerc received a 10-place grid penalty after changing the Control Electronics on his car. Only 2 sets can be used during a season. Because of the penalty, he had to start from 12th position. More frustrating news for Ferrari fans.
Interestingly, Charles Leclerc will start 3 positions ahead of Max Verstappen on 15th. What will they do to overtake the other drivers?
Sergio Perez gets another win! Sergio Perez has won a total of 5 races in his career. A bad start allowed him to be overtaken by Fernando Alonso. But with the power of the Redbull car, he was able to take the lead on lap 4.
Once again Max Verstappen showed his power with Red Bull. He passed all the cars of the other teams and finished 2nd! There was a bit of drama between him and his teammates who were trying to get an extra point for the fastest lap. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were seen ignoring the pit crew’s instructions several times to adjust their pace to the target. Probably to maintain the reliability of their cars, given the gap between them and the other teams. In the end, it was Max Verstappen who set the fastest lap, earning himself an extra point in the drivers’ championship.
Fernando Alonso still has class and proved that he and Aston Martin are not a one-hit wonder after a satisfactory result at the Bahrain GP. This time he returned to the podium and showed that Aston Martin is the second fastest car after Red Bull. It is a shame that Lance Stroll had to retire Due to engine problem. A good start by Lance Stroll, who was able to overtake Carlos Sainz and move up to 4th place until he had an engine problem after changing tires on lap 13. Had he been able to finish the race, he might have been in a good position to pick up some constructors’ points.
George Russell was able to get Mercedes up to 4th place and again beat Lewis Hamilton consistently in almost all sessions (except FP3). Lewis Hamilton was amazingly able to move up from 7th place at the start to 5th place at the finish. Mercedes was able to beat Ferrari in this race.
Before we continue, here is another drama. At the start of the race, Fernando Alonso received a 5 second penalty for starting from the wrong position. On lap 18, along with the safety car phase, he pitted and served the penalty. The race continued until he finished in 3rd place. After the ceremony and the trophy, we got the news that Fernando Alonso got a 10 second penalty because the penalty was not served properly. If you look at the gap between him and below, then George Russell got 3rd place and should be on the podium!
Aston Martin did not remain silent. Behind the scenes, Aston Martin attempted to appeal the FIA’s decision. Based on the evidence provided by Aston Martin, after several hours of waiting, the appeal was successful and Fernando Alonso was reinstated to 3rd place.
Let’s go back to Ferrari. Charles Leclerc made an amazing recovery from 12th to 7th and Carlos Sainz finished 6th. But wait, this is not the Ferrari we know. They used to be in the top 3 constructors, but now it’s doubtful that Ferrari is the second fastest team. Is it track specific or not? We’ll find out at the next race.
From the story above I was curious about a few things. Charles Leclerc was able to move up from 12th to 5th in the first stint on soft tyre. On lap 16 he pitted and changed to hard tyre. The pace on the hard tyre didn’t look as good as the first stint. This prevented him from improving and he remained in 7th place after pit.
Let’s compare his stint deg with Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.
It’s amazing that these three drivers are able to maintain the pace with negative degradation. This means that their average time per lap is increasing per stint.
Charles Leclerc on soft tyre was quite competitive with Max Verstappen on medium tyre. But in his second stint, his pace was lower than Lewis Hamilton. It seems that Ferrari is not suited for hard tyre, as the difference between the average pace of soft and hard tires is very big. Contrary to Red Bull and Mercedes, who manage to keep a stable pace despite different tyre types.
Then, good news, double points for Alpine! After some improvements in practice and qualifying, it paid off in this race with 8th and 9th place.
Kevin Magnussen scores 1 point for Haas with 10th place! It was exciting to watch his battle with Yuki Tsunoda until he finally lost pace to Kevin Magnussen at the end of the race.
Now the misfortune was on the two McLaren drivers. At the start of the race, both cars suffered damage and were forced to pit early. Although Oscar Piastri was able to get the McLaren into Q3, their race pace was no better than the other teams. It looks like they still can’t really compete with other teams for points in the race, unless there is another upgrade in the next race.
And here are the final results from the 2023 Saudi GP race.
Thank you!
That’s it! I hope you enjoy my writing. It would be great if you could give me feedback on my writing, since I’m still learning how to write well and extract data into a story.
