Skip to main content

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe
Live text
Formula 1 Saudi Arabia GP

F1 Saudi Arabia GP Live Commentary and Updates

Saturday's practice and qualifying from Jeddah

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Live Text

Sort by
Russell was the first man over the line with a 1m30.964s but it's half a second down on Latifi. Both are subsequently beaten by Vettel.
Verstappen slows to a virtual crawl approaching the final sector waiting for a McLaren in front of him, and Alonso blows by him on the outside to get his first flyer into the books. No hanging around from the double world champion.
"It's going to get messy in the last sector," reports Leclerc over the radio. Lots of cars out on track are going to be jockeying for the same bit of road and trying to keep their tyres in that narrow, optimal window.
Unsurprisingly, everybody who has headed out so far is on softs. The only two cars still in the garage are the Mercedes of Hamilton and Bottas.
Green flag
The Williams pair won the race to the end of the pitlane, so it's Russell who leads Latifi out onto the track to start Q1.
No green light yet, but we've already got cars queuing at the end of the pitlane.
We'll bring you the latest on the Hamilton verdict as soon as we get it, but until then let's focus on qualifying, which gets underway in just two minutes time.
Air temperature is currently 28.1 degrees C, with track temps of 31.3 degrees.
As you may have guessed, the risk of rain for the session is 0%. A bit like the chances of former England manager Roy Hodgson making a cameo in the Eastenders Christmas special.
Amid all of that excitement, we have a qualifying session to look foward to in just under eight minutes time. Are you sitting comfortably? Bourbons at the ready, this should be good...
That clears that up somewhat, but Hamilton and his Mercedes team will still be left to sweat over the outcome of the Mazepin verdict. Away from the stewards room, Mercedes has also had a busy time of things in the garage, with a fuel leak detected on Valtteri Bottas's car requiring him to take a new power unit from his existing pool. That means he won't incur a penalty.

“The Race Director reported to the Stewards that the double yellow flag warning on the FIA Marshalling System was activated at Light Panel Number 6 accidentally, for less than 1 second,” the bulletin from the FIA reads.

“As the on-board video of Car 44 (to be released by the Commercial Rights Holder following this Decision) clearly shows, there was no yellow flag displayed, no yellow lights were displayed to that driver and the yellow warning light was not visible on the driver’s steering wheel.”

We've just been informed that no further action has been taken against Hamilton in respect of the yellow flag breach, but we're still waiting for the stewards' verdict on his obstruction of Mazepin - who was forced to take avoiding action of the Mercedes and jink to the right of a kerb.
Lewis Hamilton was firstly summoned to the stewards for allegedly not respecting a double yellow flag, before a further summons was issued for obstructing Haas driver Nikita Mazepin. Here's the full story: https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/hamilton-summoned-over-yellow-flag-breach-in-jeddah-fp3/6850102/
Welcome back to Autosport's Live coverage of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. A fair bit has happened while we've been away...
With that we'll take a quick breather ahead of qualifying which gets underway at 5pm GMT (8pm local time). Don't miss it!
Breaking news

And some bonus reading between FP3 and qualifying, here's the six venues where F1 is planning sprint races in 2022: 

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/revealed-the-six-venues-where-f1-plans-sprint-races-in-2022/6850004/

 

Breaking news

Here is the full report on final practice at the Saudi Arabian GP:

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-saudi-arabian-gp-verstappen-leads-fp3-from-hamilton/6849918/

 
So, who is your money on for pole position? You won't need long to wait to find out with qualifying getting underway in a little under two hours.
Checkered flag
The chequered flag is out to mark the end of FP3. Verstappen fastest from Hamilton and Perez.

That looks to be it in terms of late gains as most head out on the track for practice starts. Verstappen will deny Hamilton a clean sweep of practice top spots.

Stopwatch
To underline that, Verstappen improves again on the softs, with a 1m28.100s to go 0.214s faster than Hamilton's best. Perez also makes gains to take third place ahead of both AlphaTauris.

Mercedes still struggling to go quicker on the softs comparatively to the pace both Hamilton and Bottas could produce on the hards. That provides extra intrigue ahead of qualifying.

Tsunoda is up to third with a 1m28.641s, around one-tenth faster than team-mate Gasly in fourth. AlphaTauri look very strong on single-lap pace once again.
Replays of the Hamilton and Mazepin near-miss at Turn 8 and Hamilton and Gasly near-miss at Turn 1 show just how scary the closing speeds are with one car going slowly on a prep lap.
Verstappen, on some new softs, improves again with a 1m28.105s. That gives him a 0.209s gap to Hamilton.
A couple of hairy moments for Hamilton in quick succession. First, he almost gets rear-ended by Mazepin at Turn 8 and later on the lap goes wide and off-track at Turn 1 and is almost followed in by Gasly.

Mazepin has gone off at Turn 8 but is all OK and continues his preparation for a qualifying-style lap.

 
Hamilton actually pitted at the end of his previous lap rather than going again, but he's already on another out-lap on the softs. Team-mate Bottas improves by a fraction by stays sixth.

Stroll is told to stop and pit as the team suspects he has a puncture. A peek into the Aston Martin garage sees the car on the jacks without tyres and mechanics attending to the rear wing.

It looks like the softs at this track need two laps to fire up for a hot lap, as Hamilton also backs out of his first effort and opts for a double prep.
Stopwatch
Both Mercedes are back out, this time on the softs, with Bottas the first to improve to move up to sixth place with a 1m29.098s.
Stopwatch
Verstappen pops up with a 1m28.212s to take top spot before pitting from his stint on the softs.
The artificial light is now overpowering the fading sunlight which is making the F1 cars sparkle and shine. Visually it is very pleasing.
Tsunoda sneaks up to fifth place, a couple of tenths off his team-mate having both run on the medium tyres.
 
After that flurry of lap time improvements things have cooled off, with Hamilton, Sainz and Bottas in the pits.
Stopwatch
And now Verstappen does his bit too, on the softs, with a 1m28.649s but is still 0.335s off Hamilton.

By: Autosport Staff

Published: