Hamilton famously commented at the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in 2021 that he felt “uncomfortable” being there because of its human rights record.Asked last weekend if his attitude had changed, Hamilton said: “I don’t really know what to say. My position is still the same as when I spoke here last year.”With the fate of the Saudi race having hung in the balance last week in the …Keep reading
A missile strike on an oil facility less than 10 miles from the Jeddah circuit on Friday cast doubts over whether or not the Saudi Arabian GP would go ahead.While team bosses were satisfied with the security information given to them by authorities, drivers needed more convincing before they too agreed to carry on after a four-hour meeting on Friday night.F1 chiefs have promised to speak …Keep reading
After winning the last eight F1 constructors’ championships, Mercedes has endured a difficult start to the new regulations in 2022, failing to fight for victory at either of the first two races.Lewis Hamilton finished third in Bahrain after both Red Bull cars retired in the closing stages, but could only muster 10th in Saudi Arabia. The seven-time world champion recovered to score a point …Keep reading
Red Bull introduced its third rear wing specification in Saudi (bottom, below) as it looked to trim downforce and drag further still for the high-speed street circuit.The spoon shaping was retained, albeit with a much shallower mainplane and consequently more graduated spoon shaping (dotted green line).However, this forced the designers to create more of an abrupt juncture with the …Keep reading
Gasly says he struggled with the issue over the last 15 laps of the Jeddah race, but he managed to keep going and finish in eighth place.The Frenchman had run strongly in the first part of the race, behind the group consisting of Esteban Ocon, Fernando Alonso, Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen, but lost out by pitting just before the safety car.Fighting back to finish in eighth place the …Keep reading
The Red Bull driver led the opening 14 laps of the Saudi Arabian GP but saw his race wrecked by a safety car period just one lap after his pitstop, when Nicholas Latifi crashed at the final corner.The safety car period allowed his frontrunning rivals a cheap pitstop, initially pushing Perez back to third, before the Mexican was instructed to allow Carlos Sainz Jr to pass him at the safety car …Keep reading
Ahead of what will be his 215th grand prix start, the two-time F1 race winner topped qualifying on the Corniche Circuit with his final soft tyre run in Q3 to depose the Ferrari team-mates.Perez clocked a 1m28.200s effort to head Charles Leclerc by just 0.025s, while Q1 and Q3 pacesetter Carlos Sainz Jr struggled to unlock a new set of the red-walled C4 tyres and landed third.Defending …Keep reading
The Bahrain Grand Prix victor did not take part in the final 15 minutes of the second hour-long session after he damaged the front-left track rod on his F1-75 challenger.He clipped the inside wall passing through Turn 4 and had to abort the Turn 5 sweeping right hander before cruising back to the pit lane for repairs.But that only came after his soft tyre run to wrest back the FP2 lead …Keep reading
Under the 2022 FIA sporting regulations there is no longer a penalty associated with a change of gearbox after the start of running on a Saturday.Street and temporary tracks like Jeddah, Melbourne, Monaco, Baku and Montreal – where it’s all too easy to heavily damage a car – are no longer such a tightrope walk for teams and drivers.Speculation about whether a heavy rear or …Keep reading
Formula 1’s nomadic nature makes it special. It also means it is challenging, as travelling the globe during a pandemic has demonstrated. And it creates a true world championship where other sports spout this claim erroneously.In 2022, the F1 circus is currently scheduled to visit 22 venues. That equals the record set in 2021, which was only supposed to last a year before F1 hit a new high …Keep reading