A swarm of workers lay paving stones in the area that remains inside the circuit. The race timing and direction cables are exposed down the road. Another group mounts the awnings that will protect the track marshals from the sun. Several dozen workers pass through the facilities of the ‘Paddock Club’ with reflective vests. When night falls, the extensive list of pending touch-ups goes unnoticed. Outside, Jeddah’s street circuit is in its infancy. Inside, on the asphalt, everything is ready for a Saudi Arabian GP that generates maximum expectations because, among other things, there is a title at stake.
The route is unique, it promotes itself as “the fastest urban in the world” and a brief walk through its six kilometers of rope is enough to confirm why: it is a chain of straight lines and curves in depth, along the sea cornice. Red. On paper, 26 turns. “Actually there are six. Or seven, maximum”, ditch Carlos Sainz, to AS, in reference to the actual number of stops per lap. For Ferrari? “Difficult. High speed corners and many straights, long time thoroughly. There are engines that will go through 80% of the lap with their foot fully “.
The Madrilenian confesses that he studied the laps of the safety car in the usual test on Thursdays: “When there is nothing else … normally there are laps, even if it is of another category, but there is nothing here.” In his particular analysis: “We will have to give it a spin before judging it. But in the simulator, and in the laps that I saw of the safety car, it seems like a complicated track for the driver. Also for race management, because if there is an accident , at more than 200 kilometers per hour and with the walls, we will not see it if we have it three seconds ahead. It’s a very different circuit so I hope the race is fun, but safe. “
“The asphalt is dirty but new, and usually that means it has a lot of grip,” he says. In urban areas, the Ferrari shone this year with two poles by Leclerc in Monaco and Baku and a podium by Carlos in the Principality. “At one lap, it is good to warm up the wheel well. In the race it is different “, he thinks. In any case, no result can of course be given when there are no references:” If there is a circuit in which things can happen, and those above fail, this is it. “
Expectation around the circuit
The ‘paddock’ groups leave other comments, there are authoritative voices who argue that it is “too dangerous” to average 250 kilometers per hour between concrete walls or Tec-pro barriers. The expertise of the track stewards, apparently novices, does not generate excessive confidence in a circuit that will require maximum precision on their part so that an accident does not turn, while one blinks, into a multiple incident. Otherwise, everything surrounding the event seems strange to Western eyes. Saudi Arabia wants to show the world another face, that is why it organizes the Dakar since 2020, It hosted the Spanish football Super Cup and is a fixture of Formula E. 80 kilometers from Mecca, the Formula 1 of glamor, luxury and exclusivity now lands in one of those places that until a couple of years ago seemed unimaginable , in exchange for a commercial agreement whose figures have not transpired. Needless.