Saudi Arabia Qualifying Report

Q1:

The biggest news of today was F2 driver Oliver Bearman replacing Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz after the Spaniard was diagnosed with appendicitis and therefore undergoing surgery. Due to his commitments to F1 this weekend, Bearman will no longer take place in the F2 weekend – even after he got pole position for tomorrow’s feature race. Ollie Bearman became the youngest ever Ferrari driver at just 18 years and 306 days old – racing under the number 38, last used by Mike Hawthorne at Ferrari who went on to win the race.

The first time in Q1 was set by Kevin Magnussen on the soft compound tyres. The two Mercedes drivers – Lewis Hamilton and George Russell – did their first runs on the yellow walled medium tyre which put them in 6th and 7th place.

On one of his flying laps, Oscar Piastri touched the wall on the exit of Turn 27. Thankfully for him, his car was still in one peace and he was able to carry on until the end of qualifying.

Russell was shown a black and white flag for crossing the pit entry but staying out on track. If you’re new to F1, the drivers are not allowed to do this. Every driver needs to commit to either coming in or staying out, and when they don’t, a penalty could be handed out.

The top 3 in Q1 were Verstappen, Stroll and Leclerc. However, the bottom five, and those eliminated from qualifying were: Bottas, Ocon, Gasly, Sargeant and Zhou. This was another woeful showing for Alpine and Sauber.

Q2:

The first time of this part of qualifying was set by Lewis Hamilton. A few minutes later, the first red flag of 2024 came out. This was for a stranded Nico Hülkenberg at Turn 8. After ‘sling-shotting’ past his Haas teammate, Kevin Magnussen, the German faced a loss of power. The red flag was flown for a few minutes whilst the car was pushed off the track, and all remaining cars headed back to the pits.

After his amazing show in Q1, it was an unlucky running for Ollie Bearman. The rookie was unable to put a lap together and was knocked out of Q2 on his F1 debut. However, he was very close to making it into the top 10. The youngest Brit on the grid was just 0.036 seconds off the oldest Brit on the grid, Lewis Hamilton, just missing out on Q3 in his first qualifying session. Overall, it was a great showing from Bearman who is sat on the sixth row of the grid for his F1 race debut tomorrow evening, edging on those first career points.

Along with Bearman, the other drivers eliminated in Q2 were: Albon, Magnussen, Ricciardo and Hülkenberg. The top three from the middle part of qualifying were Verstappen, Leclerc and Alonso.

Q3:

The final part of qualifying started, and after the first runs, it was Verstappen who led the top 10 shootout.

As the chequered flag fell on qualifying in Jeddah for 2024, the number 1 driver did not change, and it was Max Verstappen who took his second pole position of 2024. His time was a 1:27.472 – which was 0.3 seconds clear of Charles Leclerc in P2. The top three was rounded out by Sergio Perez – last year’s Grand Prix winner.

Oscar Piastri outqualified his McLaren teammate, Lando Norris, for the second successive year in Saudi Arabia. The two papaya cars have locked out the third row. Britcedes did not improve on their final runs and lock out the fourth row.

The whole grid for the race tomorrow looks like:

Verstappen

Leclerc

Perez

Alonso

Piastri

Norris

Russell

Hamilton

Tsunoda

Stroll

Bearman

Albon

Magnussen

Ricciardo

Hülkenberg

Bottas

Ocon

Gasly

Sargeant

Zhou

Will Verstappen be able to go two for two in race victories or will someone be able to deny him his first win since Carlos Sainz did in Singapore 2023? We will find out tomorrow!