"You have to have balls" to be fast in Jeddah, says Ocon

December 3, 2021

The Jeddah Street Circuit has been built in record time, in fact, until a few days ago it was still not 100% finished and there were doubts about whether Formula 1 could finally race in Saudi Arabia or not.

Despite these unknowns, the category has already been able to take its first laps to the Saudi track and it seems that one thing has become very clear. Unlike the vast majority of urban circuits, this one in Jeddah will be an even greater challenge due to the great speed at which practically all the curves are managed, all of them also surrounded by walls millimeters from the limits of the track.

Although it is true that we have three DRS zones throughout the circuit, overtaking will not be easy, since straights as we know them we hardly find one or two being optimistic, not to mention how narrow the layout is in some areas .

Bearing all this in mind and after having been able to test the circuit in the simulator, Esteban Ocon wanted to give his first opinion on the track that hosts the first Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in F1 history this weekend and left several statements more than interesting.

“We have prepared well in the simulator, we were there all day on Tuesday, you know.”

It’s a more than impressive track, I was talking to Lance (Stroll) and it reminds us a bit of Macau in some parts. We are going to be pushing the limits of what you can do with an F1 car and how close you can get to the walls at such high speed.”

On such a fast circuit and with the protections so close, Ocon knows what he has to do to be competitive this weekend: “So with a very, very high speed like we have here, it’s going to be very easy to make a error. We will have to have balls”.

To finish and talking about the overtaking possibilities offered by this new Saudi track, the French Alpine driver revealed what could be the preferred point of the drivers to try to gain some positions in the race on Sunday.

“Well there are three DRS zones but that doesn’t mean there will be more overtaking. I think Turn 1 will be a good opportunity. curve. I think that will be the main overtaking point”, concluded Esteban Ocon .