The 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Thread

[cmlean]

This is the place to discuss everything related to the 2nd round of the 2022 season taking place in Saudi Arabia between the 25th and 27th of March.

The event timetable for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Friday
1st Practice 17:00 local time - 14:00 GMT
2nd Practice 20:00 local time - 17:00 GMT

Saturday
Practice 17:00 local time - 14:00 GMT
Qualifying 20:00 local time - 17:00 GMT

Sunday
Race 20:00 local time - 17:00 GMT

[cmlean]

FP1 Results

Code: Select all

Pos	Time		Driver		  Team
1	1:30.772	Charles Leclerc	  Ferrari
2	1:30.888	Max Verstappen	  Red Bull Racing
3	1:31.084	Valtteri Bottas	  Alfa Romeo
4	1:31.139	Carlos Sainz	  Ferrari
5	1:31.317	Pierre Gasly	  AlphaTauri
6	1:31.505	Yuki Tsunoda	  AlphaTauri
7	1:31.563	Sergio Perez	  Red Bull Racing
8	1:32.026	Esteban Ocon	  Alpine
9	1:32.364	Lewis Hamilton	  Mercedes
10	1:32.381	Fernando Alonso	  Alpine
11	1:32.506	Daniel Ricciardo  McLaren
12	1:32.582	Lance Stroll	  Aston Martin
13	1:32.594	Lando Norris	  McLaren
14	1:32.608	Zhou Guanyu	  Alfa Romeo
15	1:32.839	George Russell	  Mercedes
16	1:33.034	Nico Hulkenberg	  Aston Martin
17	1:33.087	Alexander Albon	  Williams
18	1:33.529	Nicholas Latifi	  Williams
19	1:34.429	Mick Schumacher	  Haas
20	No Time		Kevin Magnussen	  Haas

[cmlean]

FP2 Results

Code: Select all

Pos	Time		Driver		  Team
1	1:30.074	Charles Leclerc	  Ferrari
2	1:30.214	Max Verstappen	  Red Bull Racing
3	1:30.320	Carlos Sainz	  Ferrari
4	1:30.360	Sergio Perez	  Red Bull Racing
5	1:30.513	Lewis Hamilton	  Mercedes
6	1:30.664	George Russell	  Mercedes
7	1:30.735	Lando Norris	  McLaren
8	1:30.760	Esteban Ocon	  Alpine
9	1:30.832	Valtteri Bottas	  Alfa Romeo 
10	1:30.886	Yuki Tsunoda	  AlphaTauri
11	1:30.944	Fernando Alonso	  Alpine
12	1:30.963	Pierre Gasly	  AlphaTauri
13	1:31.169	Mick Schumacher	  Haas
14	1:31.372	Lance Stroll	  Aston Martin
15	1:31.527	Daniel Ricciardo  McLaren
16	1:31.615	Nico Hulkenberg	  Aston Martin
17	1:31.615	Zhou Guanyu	  Alfa Romeo
18	1:31.814	Nicholas Latifi	  Williams
19	1:31.866	Alexander Albon	  Williams
20	1:32.344	Kevin Magnussen	  Haas

[cmlean]

Day 1 is in the books and what a disastrous day it was for the Kevin Magnussen side of the garage of Haas. In what seemed a re-occurrence of Bahrain, his Haas was hampered by what seemed hydraulic problems. In session 1, he only managed an out lap while in session 2, he improved to have 13 timed laps but then stopped on circuit.
Looking at the time sheets, Ferrari had a good day but both drivers clipped the barriers, Leclerc with the front left and Sainz the rear right. Leclerc's incident ended his session.
The usual suspects were at the top of the times. Red Bull seemed to have a little in hand even though they were pipped out of the top spot by Leclerc. Mercedes seemed a lot happier in the second session after struggling through the first. McLaren are sort of there after what could only be described as a horrible Bahrain. I am recognizing that Valtteri Bottas is really an underrated driver who, in another era, could have been one of the greats. He seems to extract every last millisecond out of this Alfa Romeo. Alpine could be the dark horses for the lower end of the points while both Aston Martin and Williams have some work to do to challenge the mid pack.

Bring on day 2

[cmlean]

FP3 Results

Code: Select all

Pos	Time		Driver		  Team
1	1:29.735	Charles Leclerc	  Ferrari
2	1:29.768	Max Verstappen	  Red Bull Racing
3	1:29.833	Sergio Perez	  Red Bull Racing
4	1:30.009	Carlos Sainz	  Ferrari
5	1:30.030	Valtteri Bottas	  Alfa Romeo
6	1:30.139	Esteban Ocon	  Alpine
7	1:30.148	Pierre Gasly	  AlphaTauri
8	1:30.262	Kevin Magnussen	  Haas
9	1:30.296	Fernando Alonso	  Alpine
10	1:30.415	Yuki Tsunoda	  AlphaTauri
11	1:30.707	Lewis Hamilton	  Mercedes
12	1:30.765	Mick Schumacher	  Haas
13	1:30.946	Zhou Guanyu	  Alfa Romeo
14	1:30.983	George Russell	  Mercedes
15	1:31.067	Lance Stroll	  Aston Martin
16	1:31.186	Daniel Ricciardo  McLaren
17	1:31.374	Alexander Albon	  Williams
18	1:31.424	Nico Hulkenberg	  Aston Martin
19	1:31.529	Lando Norris	  McLaren
20	1:31.992	Nicholas Latifi	  Williams

[cmlean]

Qualifying

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Pos	Time		Driver		  Team
1	1:28.200	Sergio Perez	  Red Bull Racing
2	1:28.225	Charles Leclerc	  Ferrari
3	1:28.402	Carlos Sainz	  Ferrari
4	1:28.461	Max Verstappen	  Red Bull Racing
5	1:29.068	Esteban Ocon	  Alpine
6	1:29.104	George Russell	  Mercedes
7	1:29.147	Fernando Alonso	  Alpine
8	1:29.183	Valtteri Bottas	  Alfa Romeo
9	1:29.254	Pierre Gasly	  AlphaTauri
10	1:29.588	Kevin Magnussen	  Haas
_________________________________________________________
11	1:29.651	Lando Norris	  McLaren
12	1:29.773	Daniel Ricciardo  McLaren
13	1:29.819	Zhou Guanyu	  Alfa Romeo
14	1:29.920	Mick Schumacher	  Haas
15	1:31.009	Lance Stroll	  Aston Martin
_________________________________________________________
16	1:30.343	Lewis Hamilton	  Mercedes
17	1:30.492	Alexander Albon	  Williams
18	1:30.543	Nico Hulkenberg	  Aston Martin
19	1:31.817	Nicholas Latifi	  Williams
20	No Time		Yuki Tsunoda	  AlphaTauri

[cmlean]

Day 2 is over and what a day it was.
Let's just say what a testament to safety is the current Formula 1 car design. Mick Schumacher walking away from a massive accident in Q2 is simply amazing. Yes, he was taken to the medical centre and to the hospital for observation but he has since posted online that he was fine.
Nicholas Latifi also had an incident in Q1 resulting in a lot of work for the Williams mechanics over the next 20 hours or so.
The most surprising result was Lewis Hamilton being knocked out of qualifying in Q1. It's a long time since this has occurred. That and George Russell, in the same car, dragged himself inside the top 10 throughout each of the qualifying sessions.
And Sergio Perez out qualifying the field. Totally unexpected given that Ferrari had topped each of the practice sessions. Yes, Max Verstappen seemed to have the best car and looked to have a bit in hand if needed but could only manage 4th in qualifying.
Late news is that Daniel Ricciardo has been given a 3 place grid penalty for impeding Esteban Ocon in Q2.
Other late news is that Haas will only field 1 car in this Saudi Arabian grand prix following the Schumacher crash. The team decided not to bring the reserve driver, Pietro Fittipaldi, into the event.

[cmlean]

Results

Code: Select all

Pos	Driver		  Team
1	Max Verstappen	  Red Bull Racing
2	Charles Leclerc	  Ferrari
3	Carlos Sainz	  Ferrari
4	Sergio Perez	  Red Bull Racing
5	George Russell	  Mercedes
6	Esteban Ocon	  Alpine
7	Lando Norris	  McLaren
8	Pierre Gasly	  AlphaTauri
9	Kevin Magnussen	  Haas
10	Lewis Hamilton	  Mercedes
11	Zhou Guanyu	  Alfa Romeo
12	Nico Hulkenberg	  Aston Martin
13	Lance Stroll	  Aston Martin
DNF	Alexander Albon	  Williams
DNF	Valtteri Bottas	  Alfa Romeo
DNF	Fernando Alonso	  Alpine
DNF	Daniel Ricciardo  McLaren
DNF	Nicholas Latifi	  Williams
DNS	Yuki Tsunoda	  AlphaTauri
DNS	Mick Schumacher	  Haas

Next: Round of Australia '22
Date: April 8-10 2022