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Formula 1
Saudi Arabian GP
F1 Saudi Arabian GP Live Commentary and Updates - FP3 & Qualifying
Friday's action from the second round of the 2024 Formula 1 season.
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Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso topped Thursday practice at Jeddah but Red Bull remains the hot favourite ahead of the main event in Saudi Arabia.
Carlos Sainz has withdrawn from the rest of the race weekend with appendicitis and Ferrari has called up junior driver Oliver Bearman who will make his F1 debut as his replacement.
Saudi Arabian GP final practice starts at 1:30pm GMT (4:30pm local time) ahead of qualifying at 5pm GMT (8pm local time).
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Perez improved last time by, but not enough to put him back ahead of Leclerc. It's a 1m29.532s, again set on the softs for Red Bull's Mexican driver.
The Haas cars are going well on the soft, as Hulkenberg springs back into fifth ahead of Norris.
Now Leclerc takes his place at the top of the charts, with a 1m29.206s. That time on mediums edges him three tenths clear of Perez, while Magnussen pops up into P5 for Haas - although is instantly shuffled back a place by Norris.
A 1m29.773s is Verstappen's opening gambit on the softs, which leaves him 0.221s down on Perez.
Also going well on the soft is Hulkenberg, who flies up to fifth to push Bearman down a position. The Brit has now left the pits again with another set of mediums.
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"Guys, it's bouncing like crazy!" is the message from Tsunoda's RB cockpit. It's been notable how there's been more regular messages about this than in Bahrain, although there the teams did have three days of testing before the race weekend got underway to iron out such problems.
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Perez replaces Russell at the top of the times with a 1m29.562s, three tenths up on the Mercedes driver.
So Russell becomes the first driver to dip underneath the 90s marker, but what can Perez muster as he trials the soft for the first time in the session?
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We've just overheard a snippet of radio as Bearman came back into the pits, asking for an adjustment to his headrest. Meanwhile his team-mae Leclerc has surfaced for the first time in the session and is going quickly on the mediums. He slots into second, just behind Russell who improves to go fastest on the soft with a 1m29.862s.
Zhou improves to a 1m30.831s to move ahead of Tsunoda into fifth after the RB driver briefly deposed him. Ricciardo's first effort - also on mediums - is slower than both, putting him P7 for now.
Stopwatch
In then comes Bearman after a very satisfactory opening to his session. He has now though been usurped at the top by Hamilton, who on softs clocks in a 1m30.253s.
Zhou has also logged his first effort on a medium which is 1.3s down on Bearman.
Bearman's effort is enough to stave off the first attack from Russell on softs, but the Mercedes man goes second on a 1m30.330s.
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Now Bottas goes top on a 1m30.770s, but Bearman is quicker still. He's fastest on a 1m30.277s. A superb moment for the youngster, but there's plenty more track running to do...
Hamilton vaults to the top with his first lap on the soft, a 1m30.793s. Bearman follows his engineer's advice and gets down to a 1m31.273s on the medium, just behind Bottas who also improves on his second push lap to a 1m31.139s.
Bearman is instructed to "take your time in the car, take your rhythm, build up from there" by his engineer Riccardo Adami. "Copy" is the response.
Alonso returned to the pits after his outlap, with Stroll switching to mediums. The track remains fairly quiet as drivers presumably elect to save rubber until later in the session and the more representative conditions.
Hamilton has now exited the pits on soft tyres, while the two Astons join the fray on hards.
Bearman's first effort is a 1m33.114s, a more than respectable start as he beds in.
Stopwatch
Bottas logs the first timed lap of the session, a 1m31.307s.
Now Bearman does join the fray, with medium tyres on his Ferrari. When I was 18, I could barely make myself dinner, let alone drive for the oldest and most prestigious Formula 1 team of them all.
Nobody else elects to follow the Sauber man out, so for now Bottas has the track to himself on his medium tyres.
Green flag
And we're green in Jeddah, with Bottas the first man out for the start of the session.
Just under three minutes to go now before the drivers hit the track. TV cameras are perhaps naturally lingering on the Ferrari garage, where Bearman is ready to go in his re-stickered #38 car.
Sun
As was the case for FP1 yesterday, this session will be held in conditions largely unrepresentative of those the drivers will face in qualifying and the race which will be under the floodlights. The air temperature is 26.2 °C, while track temperature is 42.9 °C. Both can be expected to be slightly cooler later on.
How Bearman builds up to the pace will be one of the most interesting storylines of the upcoming FP3 session, but there are plenty more to consider too - not least how the picture evolves from last night's FP2 that was topped by Fernando Alonso. But as Alex Kalinauckas explains in his in-depth analysis of the session, here, that headline time from the Aston Martin driver hasn't stopped Red Bull from being favourites...
Bearman's withdrawal from the F2 meeting will be a major dent to his title hopes, but this is one of those opportunities that you just don't turn down. And he's rather good on street tracks - as anybody who watched him win both races at Baku last year can attest.
It's worth stating though that Bearman has had some F1 practice mileage with Haas at the end of 2023, when he impressed the Ferrari customer squad, and has driven older machinery from the Maranello team. For more about the promising 18-year-old, who is in his second season of F2 this season, Filip Cleeren has profiled him here.
Ferrari typically doesn't really 'do' rookies. The last time an F1 debutant turned out for Ferrari was Arturo Merzario in the 1972 British Grand Prix.
Ferrari reserve Bearman had taken pole for tomorrow's F2 feature race, but his Prema entry has now been withdrawn to allow the Briton to focus on the not insignificant task of wading into battle in Sainz's SF-24. He becomes the first Briton to debut for Ferrari since Derek Bell at Monza in 1968.
The big story leading into the session is, for once, not related to Red Bull. That's because Carlos Sainz, who was ill all of yesterday, has now been diagnosed with appendicitis and has withdrawn. His place will be taken by Oliver Bearman, who comes in for his Formula 1 debut at Ferrari. No pressure then...
Hello and good afternoon to you wherever you are in the world. Welcome to Autosport's live coverage of Friday's track action from Jeddah as we build up to FP3 for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and qualifying later on.
By: Autosport Staff
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