Leclerc continues with Ferrari's dominance in Saudi Arabia in Free Practice 1

March 25, 2022

The Jeddah street circuit hosted the second round of the 2022 Formula 1 season after an intense battle in Bahrain between Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen that ended with Ferrari’s double due to the abandonment of the reigning world champion.

The Monegasque continued his dominance in Saudi Arabia thanks to setting a 1:30.772 in the last moments of the session, and beat the Dutchman by just over a tenth, who was ready to take his revenge.

The other surprise was also that of another Ferrari-powered single-seater, Valtteri Bottas’s Alfa Romeo, who after finishing sixth in the test in Sakhir, was able to finish third at the end of the session, four three tenths behind the world leader. Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz was fourth, despite suffering from the effect of porpoising when attempting his fastest laps in the closing moments of these free practices.

AlphaTauri, who managed to repair Pierre Gasly’s car after the fire at Sakhir, put the Frenchman in fifth place, followed by his garage mate Yuki Tsunoda.

Mexican Sergio Pérez finished in seventh place, although more than seven tenths behind Leclerc, followed by Esteban Ocon, who managed to climb to eighth position on a track where he touched the podium last season, while Lewis Hamilton did not It was beyond ninth place.

Fernando Alonso closed the top 10 with the Alpine, although more than a second and a half and with the danger of a grid penalty for changing the engine flying over the Asturian’s garage.

Results of Free Practice 1 of the Saudi Arabian GP 2022 Formula 1

(Click on ‘see results’ to enjoy the entire table)

Cla	Pilot	laps	Weather	Difference	Interval
1	Charles Leclerc	17	1’30.772
2	Max Verstappen	24	1’30.888	0.116	0.116
3	Valtteri Bottas	22	1’31.084	0.312	0.196
4	Carlos Sainz Jr.	14	1’31,139	0.367	0.055
5	Pierre Gasly	28	1’31.317	0.545	0.178
6	Yuki Tsunoda	26	1’31.505	0.733	0.188
7	Sergio Perez	25	1,31,563	0.791	0.058
8	Esteban Ocon	26	1’32.026	1.254	0.463
9	Lewis Hamilton	20	1’32.364	1.592	0.338
10	Fernando Alonso	23	1’32.381	1.609	0.017
see results

Summary: this was the free 1 of the Saudi Arabian GP 2022 of Formula 1

After the spectacular and exciting start of the 2022 Formula 1 season with the Bahrain Grand Prix, the highest category moved to celebrate the second round in Saudi Arabia, a track already known, since it was released on the calendar at the end of last grade.

The teams, willing to continue testing on the Jeddah street circuit, went out to ride even during the day in the first free practice sessions, so some references will be of little use in the classification and the race, which are held under the light of the lights.

Fernando Alonso and his teammate in Alpine, Esteban Ocon, were the ones who were most in a hurry to hit the tarmac, although they did so with different tire compounds. In the case of Asturian, he came out with a medium game, while the French tried with the hard ones.

The rest of the groups put all the single-seaters on the circuit, except Ferrari, which held out a little longer in the garage with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc. The one who did want to give as many laps as possible was Nico Hulkenberg, who was the first to give a reference with a 1:39.317, but was soon overtaken by his teammate Lance Stroll by two tenths.

The Aston Martins don’t seem to be in great shape, as just a few minutes later they fell to the bottom, while Max Verstappen brought out the hammer to put a 1m34.167s on the timesheets, over a second ahead of others.

The first couple of bars were somewhat hectic, as Haas radioed Kevin Magnussen, who surprised in Bahrain with a fifth position in the race, to enter the pitlane without changing gear, so the Americans had to work to solve the Dane’s car trouble .

Little by little, the pilots lowered the times more and more, although Red Bull remained in the lead, with the reigning world champion ahead of Pérez. The Dutchman was the reference for the rest, with a 1:31.298 , but the surprise came from AlphaTauri, who placed their pair of drivers between the two Austrian single-seaters for absolute domination of the Honda engines, although the difference with respect to the leader was still more than a second.

Ocon was the one who opened the run-offs, as he went wide at turn 1 after missing the braking point, although Magnussen fared worse, who had his car on high stands because the problem seemed more serious than it seemed. thought.

When the cameras focused on Mick Schumacher’s lap, on the finish straight it was seen how a sign indicating the distance to the curve ended up on the track. Daniel Ricciardo reported this to his team by radio, and immediately, race management, raised the red flag to stop all activity on the track and fix it. However, the real cause was Lando Norris, who hit the poster, and the pieces were scattered all over the asphalt.

With 34 minutes remaining in the session, the green flag reappeared and normality was restored, with George Russell waiting at the back of the pitlane to go out for a ride, as did the Ferraris, who wanted to dust themselves off , literally because of the amount of dirt that was on the layout of Jeddah.

The first laps of the Maranello cars were not brilliant at all, and they stayed three seconds behind Verstappen , who, given what happened in Bahrain, is his closest rival at the start of 2022, although his attempts were with the hard .

Half an hour after the start of these tests in Saudi Arabia, Pierre Gasly was being the most active driver, followed by Tsunoda, but both saw how Leclerc threatened their positions, as he improved to climb to sixth place, like Sainz, who got eighth.

Hamilton, for his part, was complaining about the porpoising, and that could be one of the reasons why he was almost a second and a half off the lead, but the one who came close to having a more serious problem was Leclerc, who lost the control of the Ferrari in the second sector and went through one of the loopholes.

Precisely the Monegasque, still with some used tires from six laps, was placed behind Verstappen at five tenths, although Gasly answered him moments later and surpassed the one from Maranello. A little more than 20 minutes from the end , more action began to be seen, as the riders tried to find the limits, as did the Frenchman from AlphaTauri, brushing the wall, or the Dutchman from Red Bull himself, who did the same as Leclerc when take a loophole

The teams called their drivers to change the tires and face the last part of these Free 1, and only Stroll and Schumacher were left out. With less than 10 minutes to go until the checkered flag, everyone except Magnussen, still struggling on his VF-22, and Alex Albon, returned to the track to take advantage of the last second, the vast majority on the soft tyre.

With almost the entire grid on track, times improved as temperatures dropped, and Leclerc took the fastest time of the session after beating Max Verstappen, although the rest were a long way off. Only Valtteri Bottas got close to the leaders in the Alfa Romeo, although Sainz struggled with porpoising and couldn’t go faster.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75