Free Practice - Blog Posts
Upgrades at Imola (and how they fared in FP 1-2-3)
Teams usually start bringing in large upgrade packages by now, with the start of the European races, as it’s far easier to transport them. Because of this, the constructors’ (or even drivers’) championship could change drastically following this weekend.
Here's a list of upgrades I could find + FP results. Do take it all with a grain of salt though since it's just practice.
Ferrari : New sidepod inlets and rear wings amongst other things (9 upgrades in total).
To the joy of all the Italian men watching, Charles Leclerc topped the time sheets, leading by over a tenth in both FP1 and 2.
Red Bull : upgraded their floor, front wing, rear corner and nose.
Max Verstappen, however, had a terrible few sessions, taking a short tumble onto the gravel and seeming to carry balance and grip issues over from Miami. It wasn’t just him in the gravel though, as he was joined by Sainz, Tsunoda, Albon, Hamilton, Piastri and others across the FP sessions.
His teammate, Perez, didn’t fare any better, with a red flag called in FP3 after he skipped across a turn hit the wall.
Aston Martin : Brought in new front wings, nose, floor, diffuser, engine cover, rear suspension and rear corner. Alonso crashed in FP3 as well, causing the first red flag.
Mclaren : Brought circuit-specific wings. They're still going strong, Piastri going second fastest in FP2 and both Mclarens topping the times in FP3.
VCARB : Hasn't seem to bring in any large upgrades going into their home race. Doesn't seem to matter though as Tsunoda goes 3rd fastest in FP2.
Williams : Made some tweaks to their floor.
Albon also signed to extend his contract earlier this week while on the way to kiss stingrays, citing that he believes in the “long-term project” that Williams is currently building on.
In FP1 however, his car’s engine shut down, leading to speculation about whether or not this was the best decision for his career. The car is also apparently overweight, rendering it much slower.
Sargeant didn't receive the aforementioned upgrade as far as I know.
Alpine, Stake : Have done the same as Williams, slightly upgrading their floors.
Haas : Now have a new, reshaped rear wing suspension. Nothing too noteworthy happened, except Magnussen cutting it a bit close to Ricciardo's RB in the last few seconds of FP3.
Mercedes : Have a new floor body, floor fences, beam wing, rear wing and front corner, seemingly the second part of the upgrades brought in at Miami.
Russell goes second fastest in FP1, only for both Merc drivers to complain about bumping in FP2.
And that's it! See you all for Quali :))
FP1's done! I hope those mercedes fans will be this hyped after the race too… 😭😭
Talking about Mercedes, Bradley Lord (Mercedes Comms Director) was on the foxtel broadcast and said this on Lewis's engine:
"We had a pretty sudden bottom end failure in the engine that we… traced [ ] back to a quality process problem rather than a design issue but the state of it is that it's out of the pool and he's on his second power unit for this weekend and then going forward."
and this on Toto in Sukuza: "After the tricky start we've had to the season he wanted to be here and be on sight and make his contribution as directly as possible."
The race weekend so far
Missed the qualifying session for Jeddah? Can't watch it? Here's a summary of what happened:
Q1 + Pre-Quali
Zhou Guanyu will start P20 after a crash in FP3. Although the car was fixed with a minute to go in Q3, he didn't manage to pass the checkered flag and set a lap-time.
Carlos Sainz gets appendicitis, manages to get P7 in FP2 but takes a break for FP3 and Quali (and the GP too).
Ollie Bearman, who takes pole in F2 after qualifying P19 in Bahrain, gets called in as his replacement for the weekend and manages to get into Q2!
Verstappen sets fastest sector 1 in Q1, Stroll sets fastest middle sector and Bearman sets fastest sector 3.
Eliminated: Bottas, Ocon, Gasly, Sargent, Zhou (a repeat of Bahrain, basically)
Q2
Alex Albon, the only driver in Q2 without a teammate, on used softs
Hulkenberg loses power and stops by the track, a yellow flag is called
Alonso Fastest sector 1 and 2, Verstappen fastest sector 3 (both on new, soft tires)
Tsunoda outqualifies Ricciardo by half a second
Bearman, Albon, Magnussen, Ricciardo and Hulkenberg are eliminated, setting P11-15 for the GP in that order
Q3
Tsunoda and Leclerc without teammates in Q3
Verstappen fastest sector 1, 2 AND 3
Leclerc says the car "feels weird on new tires...difficult to drive"
Max Verstappen takes pole position again, his first ever pole at Jeddah but not likely to be his last. It's also his 34th pole ever.
Leclerc three-tenths behind him gets to start the race in P2. They share pole-P2 in qualifying for the fifth race in a row.
Perez comes in third fastest, Alonso fourth
5-10th fastest is set by Piastri, Norriss, Russell, Hamilton, Tsunoda and Stroll (in that order)