Note about the laps:
- Leclerc and Verstappen did the whole stint with MEDIUM tires
- Sainz and Perez did their stint with SOFT tires
- The two peaks in Leclerc and Verstappen lap times are probably due to the huge amount of traffice in FP2
Race pace simulation of Perez, Sainz, Leclerc and Verstappen
Let’s not forget that
- Jeddah is a circuit with essentially no tire degradation
- Ferrari has never actually tried the fast lap
- Ferrari is probably the team that has brought the most upgrades here to Jeddah: new front wing with less downforce, new monopilon rear wing that had failed structurally in Bahrain, flap bulkhead that improves outwash (that Mercede already implemented and partially also Alfa Romeo). These are not parts that are a solution to the problems found in Bahrain but are parts that should have been introduced in the first race of the year but did not make it in time to complete their development cycle.
Redbull will probably dominate far and wide this race as well. Adrian Newey has, over the winter, developed an endless series of aerodynamic upgrades while also exploiting aero-naval techniques. It will be interesting to see how the budget cap will affect the developments of this car.
All data come from the official fastf1 API.