Last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix had the second-largest U.S. audience ever for the event, ESPN announced on Tuesday. The race, which was moved to ESPN after initially being listed for ESPN2, attracted an average audience of 1.5 million …
Last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix had the second-largest U.S. audience ever for the event, ESPN announced on Tuesday.
The race, which was moved to ESPN after initially being listed for ESPN2, attracted an average audience of 1.5 million viewers – more than a third of those coming from the 18-49 demographic – with a peak of 1.7 million. It represented an increase from 920,000 that tuned in to last year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, which was held six weeks earlier in the year and on a Saturday rather than its regular Sunday slot to accommodate Ramadan which began the day after the race.
The strong numbers for the race in Jeddah continues a trend for grands prix on ESPN, with all five races so far this season delivering a year-over-year viewership increase. The Australian and Chinese Grands Prix also had record audiences, the latter up by 32 percent from the previous record set last year, despite the 3AM ET start time. The season opener in Australia attracted 541,000 more viewers than the same event last year, while its 1.1 million average blew away that event’s previous record of 659,000 set in 2019.
The next race, the Miami Grand Prix, takes place on Sunday May 4. The race starts at 4PM ET, and will be shown on ABC and ESPN+.
Last year’s race at the Hard Rock stadium attracted the largest live television audience for an F1 grand prix, with and average of 3.1 million tuning in, plus a Saturday record average of 946,000 for that weekend’s Sprint race – this year’s event will also have a Sprint, starting at 12PM local time on Saturday May 3.
Max Verstappen says he is refusing to give his opinion on controversial incidents in races because of the way others react to his comments, after picking up a penalty at the start of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The stewards gave Verstappen a …
Max Verstappen says he is refusing to give his opinion on controversial incidents in races because of the way others react to his comments, after picking up a penalty at the start of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The stewards gave Verstappen a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage at the exit of Turn 1. The defending champion declined to offer his take on the incident and the penalty itself in multiple post-race interviews, pointing to the way people might respond if they don’t agree with his point of view.
“It has to do with social media in general, and how the world is,” Verstappen said. “I prefer not to talk a lot because sometimes your words can be twisted or people interpret it in a different way. It’s honestly better not to say too much. So that’s what I’m trying to do.
“It’s just the world we live in. You can’t share your opinion because it’s not appreciated apparently, or people can’t handle the full truth. Honestly, it’s better if I don’t say too much. It also saves my time because we already have to do so much.
“It’s honestly just how everything is becoming. Everyone is super sensitive about everything. And what we have currently, we cannot be critical anyway. So less talking, even better for me.”
Expanding on not being able to be critical himself, Verstappen referenced the FIA’s International Sporting Code, and how a driver can be penalized for misconduct.
“I know I cannot swear in here, but at the same time, you also can’t be critical in any form that might ‘harm’ or ‘danger’… Let me get the sheet out. There’s a lot of lines, you know? So that’s why it’s better not to talk about it – you can put yourself in trouble, and I don’t think anyone wants that.”
Verstappen has previously been ordered to accomplish some work of public interest for swearing in an FIA press conference at last year’s Singapore Grand Prix, and limited his answers in such situations for a number of races after that punishment.
The penalty the Dutchman received in Jeddah was reduced from the standard 10 seconds to five by the stewards as they felt the fact it occurred at the first corner of the opening lap was a mitigating circumstance, but Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described it as “very harsh” as he defended his driver post-race.
Lewis Hamilton described his Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “horrible”, and he doesn’t see a short-term solution to his “painful” struggles this season at Ferrari. A Sprint victory in China suggested Hamilton was starting to get to grips with his new …
Lewis Hamilton described his Saudi Arabian Grand Prix as “horrible”, and he doesn’t see a short-term solution to his “painful” struggles this season at Ferrari.
A Sprint victory in China suggested Hamilton was starting to get to grips with his new machinery after 12 years at Mercedes, but that has been followed by grand prix results of seventh, fifth and seventh over the past three races. Following optimism in Bahrain that he clicked with the car during one stint, the entire weekend in Jeddah was difficult and Hamilton was downbeat after finishing over half a minute behind teammate Charles Leclerc.
“Nothing positive to take from [the race], except for Charles finishing on the podium, which is great for the team,” Hamilton said.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
“It was horrible. It was not enjoyable at all. I was just sliding around. First stint, massive understeer, car not turning, and then massive deg, and then the second stint, slightly better balance, but still just no pace. It was pretty bad.
“I just lacked grip, I lacked good balance. I was just fighting the car every corner, and nothing I did would work.”
After five races in six weeks, the next race in Miami is a standalone event on May 4, but Hamilton doesn’t expect to find any significant solutions to his difficulties in that time.
“[Leclerc] has been driving this car for a long time, so he definitely knows it pretty well. There’s plenty in the data, for sure. Honestly, it doesn’t look massively different in the data, just that you’re slower through the corners.
“I think I will struggle with this in Miami. I don’t know how long I’ll struggle for, but it’s definitely painful … At the moment there’s no fix. This is how it’s going to be for the rest of the year. So it’s pretty painful.
“I don’t anticipate [a solution], but we do have slightly different set-ups. We’ll have to look and see whether that set-up is the way the car likes to be set. Him and his side are definitely also doing a good job of it.”
Hamilton also described the ground effect era of car that was introduced in 2022 as “the worst” given the difficulties he’s faced, but admits it’s not simply a case of looking at the car for answers.
“No, it’s not. In qualifying it’s me, extracting performance. In the race, I literally tried everything, and the car just didn’t want to go any quicker.”
Who had it on their bingo card that it would bet the fifth race of the season when Max Verstappen’s driving would come under scrutiny? To be fair to Verstappen, it wasn’t for something wild or reckless, or that overly impacted another driver’s …
Who had it on their bingo card that it would bet the fifth race of the season when Max Verstappen’s driving would come under scrutiny?
To be fair to Verstappen, it wasn’t for something wild or reckless, or that overly impacted another driver’s potential race result in the end, but it was very much about his interpretation of the rules, and the fact that both he and Red Bull felt particularly hard done by, despite what appears to be generally widespread acceptance that the stewards made the right call.
When Oscar Piastri got a better launch off the line than Verstappen, the polesitter looked to move across and close the door on the relatively short run to Turn 1, but did not have the ability to do so as the McLaren pulled alongside.
Verstappen’s next best chance was to outbrake Piastri at the first corner, but again the advantage that Piastri gained on the initial part of the start meant Verstappen had to take a lot more speed than the Australian toward the first corner to be anywhere near being able to claim that he was ahead at the apex.
Piastri nailed his braking point and used all of the track. Verstappen carried more speed and never looked like making the corner, but all he was looking for was the ability to say his car was ahead at the apex of Turn 1 and therefore if Piastri did not leave him space on the exit then he was entitled to go off track.
It’s a classic Verstappen move, but it’s also one that is still allowed due to the wording of the Driving Standards Guidelines that the stewards operate by. In this case, the stewards were pretty clear with their viewpoint on the matter.
“The stewards … determined that Car 81 [Piastri] had its front axle at least alongside the mirror of Car 1 [Verstappen] prior to and at the apex of corner 1 when trying to overtake Car 1 on the inside. In fact, Car 81 was alongside Car 1 at the apex.
“Based on the Driver’s Standards Guidelines, it was therefore Car 81’s corner and he was entitled to be given room.
“Car 1 then left the track and gained a lasting advantage that was not given back. He stayed in front of Car 81 and sought to build on the advantage.”
The case is pretty clear cut, from onboards to stills… Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images
The end result was a 5s time penalty, and although Verstappen tried to escape up the road to negate it, he didn’t have the pace and lost the lead to Piastri through the pit stop phase.
As an incident that happened on the opening lap, Verstappen had plenty of time to ponder it during the rest of the race, and returned to the grid after finishing second with a clear stance. He felt hard done by, but was not going to give the FIA the chance to sanction him for potentially saying so.
“I’m going to keep it quite short,” Verstappen said immediately getting out of the car. “I just want to say a big thank you to the fans here in Jeddah. It’s been a great weekend. I love the track and, yeah, the rest is what it is. I’m looking forward to Miami. So I’ll see you there.”
And with that, he was gone. Even later in the FIA press conference — and all of the television interviews he did prior to that — he would not be drawn on the incident.
“Start happened, Turn 1 happened, and suddenly it was lap 50,” he said. “It just all went super fast. The problem is that I cannot share my opinion about it because I might get penalized also, so it’s better not to speak about it.
“I think it’s better not to talk about it. Anything I say or try to say about it might get me in trouble.”
Verstappen insisted at one stage that his stance was about the way words can be twisted and how social media might react to comments, but also then referenced the long list of potential charges that could be leveled at him by the governing body for being overly critical toward it.
It was a flashback to last year, and the same could be said for the way Red Bull reacted, trying to defend Verstappen when it appeared there was little to get angry about.
“I thought it was very harsh,” team principal Christian Horner said, after bringing a still image from Verstappen’s onboard camera with him to his press briefing.
“We didn’t concede the position because we didn’t believe that he’d done anything wrong. You can quite clearly see at the apex of the corner, we believe that Max is clearly ahead. The rules of engagement they’ve discussed previously and it was a very harsh decision.
“If we’d have given it up, the problem is you then obviously run in the dirty air as well. You could have dropped back behind, the problem is you then are at risk with George [Russell]. The best thing to do was, at that point, ‘We got the penalty, get your head down, keep going.’”
Wheel vs. wing mirror depth, from the exit of Turn 2. Alex Pantling/Getty Images
The image that Horner was referencing didn’t definitively show where the apex of the corner was, but it did show Piastri’s right front wheel to be clearly ahead of Verstappen’s wing mirror, meeting the criteria set out in the guidelines that would give the McLaren the right to the corner. Horner effectively dug himself a hole trying to defend his driver, as he again brought up the guidelines and then pointed to an image that actually proved him wrong.
“They’ve both gone in at the same speed, Oscar’s run deep into the corner, Max can’t just disappear at this point in time, so perhaps these rules need a re-look-at. I don’t know what happened to let them race on the first lap, that just seemed to have been abandoned.
“We felt we hadn’t really done anything wrong. First corner, racing incident, two cars go in, I don’t know where he’s supposed to go. At this point, he can’t just vanish.
“Oscar’s had a good start, Max has had an average start, they’ve ended up [fighting]. But as per their [stewards’ decision], front wheel ahead has to be at least in line with the mirror. It’s very, very, very, very close.”
It shouldn’t really be a big talking point, because the penalty shouldn’t be so strongly opposed. There were so few people that agreed with Red Bull’s point of view, with one team principal — not McLaren’s — stating in response, “Let it go; he was never making that corner.”
There are times Verstappen’s reputation precedes him and he appears to come under extra scrutiny, and there are others where he drives to the letter of the law and should not be criticized for that.
In this case, his attempt at using the rules to his advantage was absolutely fine, but it didn’t come off. While you can make a case in defense of Verstappen that he won’t have had time to analyze and review the incident when he spoke, Horner and Red Bull clearly had. Surely the team principal knew he didn’t really have an argument.
But with such instability and uncertainty over Verstappen’s future, even hinting that the driver could have been in the wrong is totally out of the question. And so we are here again, with a relatively small incident that was easily dealt with at the time, being turned into a point of contention that highlights Verstappen’s driving once again.
This was a minor infringement, but the reaction points to there being plenty more controversies as Verstappen’s title defense comes under increasing threat this year.
Lando Norris doubts whether McLaren had the fastest car in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite recovering to fourth place from tenth on the grid. Oscar Piastri beat Max Verstappen by 2.8s after the Red Bull driver picked up a 5s time penalty for a …
Lando Norris doubts whether McLaren had the fastest car in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite recovering to fourth place from tenth on the grid.
Oscar Piastri beat Max Verstappen by 2.8s after the Red Bull driver picked up a 5s time penalty for a first lap incident, dropping behind Piastri at the pit stops. Starting on the hard tire, Norris made strong progress of his own to recover from a crash in Q3, crossing the line 9.1s behind Piastri, but believes the Red Bull looked like a quicker car over the race distance.
“The pace was very strong,” Norris said. “To finish 9s off the lead was a little bit surprising, so it showed our pace was pretty good. Mainly considering the clean air around here, it’s just a dream.
“As soon as Charles [Leclerc] boxed, my pace was very good. Of course, not quite as good as the lead on new tires, but clean air around here is just beautiful. I made the most of that, and Charles just did a very good first stint on the medium, and therefore I didn’t have a big tire delta comparing to him.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
“Nothing more I can ask. The Ferrari was quick… Obviously Max was quick as well, and clearly we didn’t have much of an advantage. If anything, you would say Max was probably the quickest out there today, which means we have some work to do.”
Although Norris lost the championship lead to Piastri with the result in Jeddah, he says he is not overly concerned due to the race pace he has been able to show so far this season.
“I’m not surprised because of the mistakes I’ve made over the last few Saturdays,” he said. “My Sundays I think I’m pretty happy with; they’ve been pretty strong. All of my Sundays, the pace has been good.
“I have good confidence, the pace is there, and I feel like I’m the best at the minute, but I make my life too tough on Saturday. I’m making myself work for it. It makes my Sundays maybe a little bit more fun at times.
“Missed out on the trophies and the apple juice. I’ve got to work on my Saturdays, and if I can work on my Saturdays, I’m confident I can get back to where I was.”
Oscar Piastri believes standing his ground against Max Verstappen at the start was the key to his victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The Australian got down the inside of polesitter Verstappen off the line and the defending champion tried to …
Oscar Piastri believes standing his ground against Max Verstappen at the start was the key to his victory in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Australian got down the inside of polesitter Verstappen off the line and the defending champion tried to respond around the outside of Turn 1, but cut Turn 2 and remained ahead. The move earned Verstappen a 5s time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage, allowing Piastri to take the lead during the pit stops and secure his third win of the season.
“Once I got on the inside, I wasn’t coming out of Turn 1 in second,” Piastri said. “I tried my best. Obviously the stewards had to get involved, but I thought I was plenty far enough up and in the end that’s what got me the race. I’m very, very happy with all the work we’ve been doing in the starts, and that’s what won us the race today.
“It was a pretty tough race. Very, very happy to have obviously won, and made the difference at the start. I made my case into Turn 1 and that was enough. It was really tricky to follow out there. I couldn’t really stay with Max at the end of the first stint, just chewed up my tires and then the clean air was nice after the pit stop.
“Great race. We did the parts we needed to right; still need a bit more, I think. Max was a little bit too close for our liking, but a great race and a great weekend.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
Although Piastri felt it was an important move in the race, he doesn’t see the incident as a significant marker against a potential championship rival.
“I mean, not specifically against Max, but I knew I was so far alongside that that was going to be my corner and I obviously knew it was going to be a difficult fight given it’s Max, but I think I did everything I needed to. If the shoe was on the other foot it would have looked identical probably, so no, I think it was good racing and I think it was the right call.”
Both McLaren drivers cited Red Bull’s pace as impressive, but Piastri insists he still had a car advantage in Jeddah, even if it wasn’t as big as he had predicted.
“I think our car was still quicker,” he said. “I think it was difficult to be in dirty air. Max was quicker than I expected for sure in the race. I thought over one lap it wasn’t a huge surprise to see Max quick, but in the race, I wasn’t expecting to struggle so much at the end of the medium stint, that’s for sure.
“Clearly we’ve got some work to do. I think our car is still very good, but when you look at the layout here compared to Suzuka, it’s the most similar so far, and it’s been the two where Max and Red Bull have been closer. I think we still have an advantage. I don’t think it’s as big on surfaces like this and layouts like this, but we still have a very strong car at the moment.”
Oscar Piastri took the world championship lead for the first time in his career after defeating Max Verstappen to win the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Piastri beat Verstappen to the first turn with a faster reaction to the lights, but the Dutchman …
Oscar Piastri took the world championship lead for the first time in his career after defeating Max Verstappen to win the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Piastri beat Verstappen to the first turn with a faster reaction to the lights, but the Dutchman rolled off the brakes in a bid to stay ahead and claim the corner. He sailed off the road, cutting the chicane and rejoining the track with the lead.
Both drivers argued the point over team radio, but the race was almost immediately suspended for a crash between Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly further down the field.
The pair tangled trying to navigate Turn 4-5 side by side, but the Red Bull Racing car tagged the Alpine and sent both spinning backwards into the barrier, putting both out of the race and forcing a three-lap safety car.
Stewards used the intermission to open an investigation into the Piastri and Verstappen’s first-turn disagreement and sided with the former, penalizing the Dutchman 5s for passing off the track just as he aced the restart to maintain the lead. The decision allowed Piastri to play a longer game, sitting just outside DRS range around 1.5s behind the leader to keep his strategic options open to gain from Verstappen’s to-be-served penalty.
McLaren pulled the trigger at the end of lap 19, just as a gap emerged in the chasing back behind him. A slow 3.4s stop dropped him into sixth behind Lewis Hamilton, but an unorthodox move around the Ferrari’s outside of Turn 21 got him into fifth and some clear air with which to maximize his undercut.
Verstappen waited two laps to respond but never stood a chance. Serving his penalty before having his tires changed, he rejoined the race behind Hamilton, with his gap to Piastri flipped into a 3s deficit.
With the benefit of clear air — Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris took turns in the lead but pit out of his way on laps 29 and 34 respectively — Piastri was unreachable by Verstappen, with only backmarker traffic intermittently shrinking the gap.
He took the checkered flag a 2.8s winner, the first winner of the season not to start from pole and his third victory from five grands prix this season.
“It was a pretty tough race,” he said. “I made the difference at the start — I made my case into Turn 1 and that was enough.
“Once I got on the inside, I wasn’t coming out of Turn 1 in second.
“In the end that’s what got me the race, so I’m very happy with all the work we’ve been doing at the starts.”
Victory puts Piastri 10 points clear of teammate Norris at the top of the standings, making him the first Australian to lead the title table since Mark Webber in 2010.
Verstappen was unchallenged in second but, in what will be interpreted as a protest against the result, refused to answer questions in the post-race interviews.
“I love the track. The rest is what it is,” he said. “I’m looking forward to Miami, so I’ll see you there.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
Charles Leclerc completed the podium, the first for Ferrari this season, after holding off a fast-finishing Lando Norris in the final nine laps.
Leclerc started on medium tires but ran long, until lap 29, before switching to the hard compound, building a useful tire offset that rocketed him past George Russell for third with 12 laps to go.
Norris launched from 10th with the opposite strategy, starting on the hard tire but also running long, until lap 34, before switching to the faster medium. The McLaren driver blasted past Russell for fourth on lap 41 to put himself 4.1s behind the Ferrari driver for the final place on the rostrum.
Gradually he reeled in the scarlet car but couldn’t get himself into range of DRS, Leclerc taking his spot on the rostrum by just 1.09s.
“I was very, very happy with the race today,” he said. “I think we maximized absolutely everything.
“I’m proud of what we’ve done. Now we just need to improve the car to be fighting a little bit further up.”
Mercedes teammates Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli finished fifth and sixth ahead of a lackluster Lewis Hamilton, who started and finished seventh, last among the frontrunners.
Williams was the undisputed best performer in the midfield, with Carlos Sainz leading home teammate Alex Albon in eighth and ninth to move the team up to fifth in the constructors championship.
Isack Hadjar scored the final point of the race for Racing Bulls.
Liam Lawson finished 11th on the road but was demoted to 12th with a 10s penalty for passing off the track, swapping places with Fernando Alonso.
Haas duo Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon finished 13th and 14th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Lance Stroll, Jack Doohan — the only driver to make two pit stops — and Gabriel Bortoleto.
The yellow flags came out, the camera cut to a car very much in the barrier, and when it became clear through the settling dust that it was a McLaren, you just knew it was Lando Norris. “F***ing idiot,” came the standout line from Norris’ team …
The yellow flags came out, the camera cut to a car very much in the barrier, and when it became clear through the settling dust that it was a McLaren, you just knew it was Lando Norris.
“F***ing idiot,” came the standout line from Norris’ team radio, after confirming he was OK.
Heading into Q3 as arguably the favorite for pole position, and certainly well in the mix, Norris’ session was over before he even had a time on the board. P10 would be his best starting spot, and his team had a car to rebuild.
There were multiple reasons you felt you knew which McLaren driver it was going to be, with Oscar Piastri seemingly so calm and methodical in his approach so far this season, even as he looks — and so far succeeds — to up his qualifying game.
But for Norris, the fallout from Bahrain was a real knock to his confidence. P6 in qualifying and third place in the race, while Piastri comfortably won, rocked the championship leader, who admitted he had to try and clear his head between races as the tripleheader quickly shifted to Saudi Arabia.
“I needed a couple of days off; I needed a reset,” Norris said on arrival in Jeddah. “I probably would have liked a few more days altogether, but I made the most of my three days relaxing, kind of getting away from everything a little bit.
“But at the same time I think with every athlete’s mind and every driver’s mind, as much as you try and get away, you’re still thinking of a lot of things, so for a lot of my time I was still thinking of the difficulties that I’ve been struggling with.
“It’s still been a very good start to the year. I try to force myself to think of what a success the start of the season has been. Yes, I know I could have been better, but still to be leading the championship after not being happy, after not feeling comfortable in the car, it’s still a start to the year that I would have dreamed of before the season started.
“So I think I try to remind myself of some of the positives — which there’s still been quite a few of — but there’s still a lot of me trying to figure out the issues, the struggles, the reasoning behind it all. The most difficult thing is trying to find the answers to things, [and] I think we’re along the right track.”
The difference in Norris was noticeable between the frustrated and downbeat figure in Bahrain and the one that arrived in Saudi Arabia, and the words stood out even before a wheel had been turned on track. It’s not that Norris wasn’t being as self-critical as ever, but he was articulating himself in a far more clear and constructive way than he had been when struggling a few days earlier.
Norris may have made quite a mistake in qualifying, but it was a matter of pushing the limits. Clive Mason/Getty Images
“I know I can be so much better and perform at a much higher level than what I’m doing now,” he said. “My level of confidence was very high at the end of last season — not for any other reason, but I just understood the car, I understood how to drive it and I could go out and execute things perfectly.
“Now I cannot, just because my feelings are not there, my way of driving is not suited at all. I just hate not being able to know how I’m going to go out and perform in the qualifying lap. Maybe this is a lie but … last year if you asked me, ‘Are you confident going into qualifying?’ I would have been much more likely to say yes than what I am now.
“That’s just because of how I feel in the car itself. No, it’s not for any reason, but I know what I can do and I know what I’m doing and I know what I can … achieve is a lot higher than what I’m doing now.
“So the fact that I’m still leading the championship, the fact that the start of the year has not been dreadful probably gives me more hope than anything else — that if I can get things to click and move in the right direction that I’m hopeful that I can start to become much stronger.”
It is admirable that Norris wears his heart on his sleeve, even if it can feel like he’s being too harsh on himself at times. But I’ll admit I was expecting those quotes to either vindicate his reset after a strong performance in Saudi Arabia, or be far removed from his updated outlook if he had a poor one.
Hitting the wall at Turn 5 after looking to have a slight edge over teammate Piastri all weekend, and leaving himself 10th on the grid while Max Verstappen and Piastri make up the front row, could easily have shattered Norris’ confidence once again. But instead, there were signs of recovery from the 25-year-old, even if his expletive over team radio was something he laughed at when reminded of it.
“Makes sense! I agree with it,” Norris said over an hour after his crash. “I should be fighting for pole, and especially on a [first run in Q3] lap I shouldn’t be taking any silly risks like I seemed to have done.
“I will go and review it all, but it’s not a guarantee we would have been on pole because Max did a good job. Red Bull were quick the whole of qualifying; it wasn’t really a surprise. It would have been nice to be in that fight, I was doing well until then and feeling comfortable but [the radio messages] makes sense — I shunted!
“Not proud or happy. I let myself and the team down and the guys have a big job to fix it all. It’s just the way it is. I agree with what I said, but I still look forward to tomorrow and have to try and make up for today.”
The reasons for optimism stem from the way Norris dismissed the mistake as something completely separate to his recent struggles in terms of the way his McLaren handles, and he’s actually seen so much progress on that front.
McLaren’s Andrea Stella hasn’t had any confidence shaken by Norris’ slightly troubled start to the season. Zak Mauger/LAT Images
Given how open and honest he can be, it’s hard to doubt Norris when he is being more positive than you expect, but it was a picture that was reinforced by his team principal Andrea Stella, who believes the race will actually give Norris an opportunity to showcase his mental resilience.
“100 percent, not only in the next 24 hours, but I would say that after five minutes — or at least after five minutes that Lando was here back in the office — immediately the mindset changed,” Stella said.
“That’s not the position that we want to be in a race in which we could have started from the front row, but actually we take it as an opportunity to show our determination, to show the strength from our attitudinal point of view, in terms of our mindset, and this was very much what we talked about in the debrief — post-qualifying — and also the genuine attitude that everyone brought into the debriefing and into preparing and positioning the team to have a good race tomorrow.
“I really hope that we will be in condition to have some free air laps tomorrow, use the pace that we saw on Friday, and this weekend could actually be a weekend from which we come out stronger, reinforced, even more confident. Because we see our strengths, and I think this aspect of qualifying is very episodic.
“We just have to understand how to deal with the fact that perhaps sometimes you just don’t have to go for the final few milliseconds until we make the car just more genuine in terms of the cueing and the feedback that the car gives to the drivers. This is 100 percent the responsibility of the team.”
Perhaps trying to take a share of the blame onto the team’s shoulders was a stretch — Piastri didn’t put it in the wall and was 0.01s off pole position, after all — but Stella will always protect his driver, even if he insists he doesn’t need to pick Norris up after his error.
This weekend, you believe him. Norris might have just thrown away a huge chunk of points and the championship lead, but his progression in Jeddah and attitude on Saturday night suggests this could still be a significant weekend in the wider context of his personal development into a stronger championship contender.
Lando Norris beat teammate Oscar Piastri to top spot in final practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in a foreboding demonstration of pace by McLaren to go more than 0.6s quicker than any other team. Despite FP3 taking place in the late …
Lando Norris beat teammate Oscar Piastri to top spot in final practice for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in a foreboding demonstration of pace by McLaren to go more than 0.6s quicker than any other team.
Despite FP3 taking place in the late afternoon, with the track temperature an unrepresentative 115 degrees F, Norris got surprisingly close to beating last year’s pole time.
His benchmark of 1m 27.489s was just 0.017s slower than Max Verstappen’s pole-getting best in 2024 and only 0.024s faster than teammate Piastri.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
Piastri had seemed set to end the final practice session at the top of the order after the final run on fresh softs, but Norris squeezed an extra 0.182s from his used rubber to move from second to first off the back of an impressive purple final sector.
The Australian attempted to respond on his used tires but aborted the effort after a wobble put him off line and spoiled the lap.
George Russell followed in third, but the Mercedes driver was 0.627s slower than Norris. The rest of the top 10 is spread over a smaller gap.
Max Verstappen moved up to fourth with a last-gasp lap on old tires that put him 0.845s off the pace after another session beset by niggles, this time including engine braking.
He displaced Charles Leclerc who dropped to fifth just 0.038s further back.
The Monegasque commented over radio at the end of the session that he felt that was the maximum from the Ferrari in these warm conditions.
Williams teammates Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz were 0.9s and 1.081s off the pace respectively but secured top midfield honors for the team ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, who was 1.136 slower than Norris’s benchmark.
Repairs to Yuki Tsunoda’s car after his late crash in FP2 yesterday were ongoing until almost halfway through the session, the Japanese driver thanking the team for its work as he joined the session with around 35 minutes still on the clock.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed the top 10 for Mercedes.
Isack Hadjar battled a water bottle problem on his way to 11th ahead of a despondent Lewis Hamilton, who sounded in equal parts mystified and defeated by his 0.408s gap to teammate Leclerc and 1.291s deficit to top spot.
Liam Lawson was 13th ahead of Fernando Alonso and Jack Doohan, who will see the stewards later in the day for crossing the white pit lane entry line early in the session.
Oliver Bearman was 16th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Ocon.
Gabriel Bortoleto missed FP2 with a fuel leak, costing him the only session run in representative conditions.
The Brazilian completed a session-high 24 laps in a bid to make up for lost running, putting him ahead of only Lance Stroll at the bottom of the pile.
Ollie Bearman believes he has proven all he can in his surprise Formula 1 debut at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and wants to use the momentum to keep impressing in Formula 2. The Ferrari reserve driver was required as a late replacement for the …
Ollie Bearman believes he has proven all he can in his surprise Formula 1 debut at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, and wants to use the momentum to keep impressing in Formula 2.
The Ferrari reserve driver was required as a late replacement for the unwell Carlos Sainz, and duly qualified 11th — within 0.04s of a Q3 spot — and then scored six points with seventh place in the race. Having targeted a top ten result and clean performance, Bearman says his attention will return to F2 and trying to play catch-up in the championship after having to withdraw from this weekend’s race.
“I don’t know what else I can do, because I don’t think I’ll be in Formula 1 for the rest of the year,” Bearman said. “That was my goal, to do a great showing this weekend. I think I did a decent job, so that is alright. That is all I can do, keep pushing in Formula 2 and cross my fingers.
“Of course, after getting pole in Formula 2 I was a bit disappointed not to be able to finish the weekend, but when an opportunity like this comes, you can’t not take it, so I am really happy to have gone for it and I think I did a good showing for myself.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1388]
“Now the focus goes back to Formula 2 and it’ll be a tough championship from now on because I am two rounds behind everyone. Bahrain was a different story, but here I could’ve scored some good points. I’ve got more points in Formula 1 than I do in Formula 2 at this point, so I’ve got some more work to do.”
Bearman pulled a strong move on Yuki Tsunoda as he climbed into the points on Saturday and then had the pace to hold off Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton on alternate strategies, but says his machinery played a big part in beating the seven-time world champion, who congratulated him in parc ferme.
“We also had a faster car, so that helps,” he said. “The car was flying today, so that is obviously a big bonus, but I think we executed a clean race, no mistakes, and that is exactly what we were looking for so I am happy with my performance.
“[Hamilton] was basically pulling me out of the car because I was struggling. It was really physical, but in a race like this, one of the lowest degradation tracks of the season and one of the highest lateral G’s, you are pretty much doing 50 qualifying laps which is quite impressive.”
While he’s unsure if his performance has earned him a full-time F1 drive in 2025, Bearman says it has at least warranted a post-race reward.
“I have some debriefs with the team and I think I’ll have a nice, big dinner tonight and a big dessert. I think I earned that. It depends what time we finish because at the moment the debrief is scheduled to finish at midnight. Maybe it’ll be some junk food, a burger.”
