Ferrari favorite to everything, and Max Verstappen as the main rival because his champion stripes demand it, and then Sergio Pérez arrives, who has the last laugh and the best laugh: unappealable pole position for the Mexican driver in the Saudi Arabian GP ahead of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who hit the post again (he led Q2 and the first attempt at Q3), and whose assault on the first position on the grid is getting closer, although it has not yet materialized. The man from Madrid overcame the differences with his teammate and found good sensations with the used soft tire when before it would have seemed that there were none. He got closer than ever, beating Charles by a few thousandths of a margin a couple of times.
But at the decisive moment, with the brand new Pirelli, Leclerc flew more than Sainz, and Checo more than anyone else, to sign the first pole position of his Formula 1 career. Not bad for a driver with two victories under his belt that has to be measured every Saturday in mechanical equality, in theory, to the most uncomfortable teammate on the grid. Good news for Red Bull after the double retirement, because this time they will have two cars to mess with the Ferraris. And Verstappen behind them, against them, in a circuit full of threats. After the scares, because there were more on the track this Saturday, an exciting grand prize is presented.
Fernando Alonso was seventh, aspired to fifth overnight of Jeddah but in the end it was Ocon who took that position of honor, the best of the rest. Russell separated the Alpines. In any case, the Spaniard saved sets of soft tires and will be able to opt for an interesting strategy in a race that always has red flags. The A522 works on this very high speed, no-corner circuit, who would have thought they would have the third fastest car this weekend at one lap. Bottas, Gasly and Magnussen closed out the top-10 in Q3.
Mick’s ugly crash, Hamilton’s slump
Jeddah Corniche is dangerous, not only because of the artifacts that fly over its airspace, but also because of what happens between the guardrails of its narrow but very fast route. In Q2, Mick Schumacher suffered a violent accident that split his Haas in two. He lost control on the curb at turn 12 and from there to the concrete. He left conscious, straight to the medical center, while the track marshals collected a mass of carbon fiber. The session stopped for more than half an hour. After a while they confirmed that he was fine, with no apparent injuries, but that he would go to the hospital to confirm it.
Earlier, in Q1, what once would have seemed like science fiction happened: Hamilton was eliminated with the Mercedes for lack of speed and performance, between the Williams and Aston Martin, with the 16th fastest time of a peloton of 19 (because Tsunoda suffered a breakdown, another one from Honda, also related to fuel). The Englishman goes out to come back with an engine without power on a very high speed circuit, and he does not rule out starting from the pit lane to make major changes to the settings. The starting position of the driver with the most poles in history would be the news of the weekend without Mick’s ugly incident, but above all without the worrying drone attack 15 kilometers from the GP. But who knows what F1 has in store for this Sunday.