by FEDERICO ALBANO
Jeddah, the clues from the first free practices
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend begins with a decidedly interim session. The first high-speed and front-limiting track presents itself as an opportunity for the engineers to confirm the performance of the single-seaters, which up to now have only run on the Sakhir track, with a totally different morphology.
Conservative Ferrari
Thus the first session was used by those who still needed to work on correlation, such as Ferrari, to collect useful data. Partly for this reason, and partly because the Jeddah track is still very “green” at the start of the weekend, the SF-24 was presented with the same medium-high downforce rear wing seen in Bahrain, suggesting that a new lower load specification will debut in the second session, but still shrouded in mystery. Looking at the data collected in the first session, it then became clear that the Maranello team was still working hard on data acquisition, including a mapping of the Power Unit that was decidedly conservative compared to the competition.
In fact, we compared the laps of Verstappen (first as always), Alonso, Russell and Leclerc to try to find some keys to understanding the first session on the track, combining some of our sensations collected during the live broadcast. The most macroscopic data is precisely the linear growth in all the straights of Leclerc's gap compared to all the others, confirming an overall deficiency in the power release sections which can only be explained by a very conservative mapping. Of the Ferrari we also note the high load level which emerges a little in every corner, but stands out above all in the mixed section at medium-high speed that goes from turn 8 to turn 12, where Leclerc precedes Verstappen and Alonso in the races with the Aston Martin which in turn took to the track in the still version load. In this stretch the car that appeared to be in most difficulty was the Mercedes, with Russell regularly slower in all these high speed runs in practically all laps, despite excellent lap times.
Aggressive Mercedes
The impression is therefore of a Mercedes that for now is very aggressive in its set-up, decidedly unloaded, with very low ground clearances and which aims to prevail in the high-speed sections. It remains to be seen whether this will be confirmed in the second free practice session. At Red Bull the start was certainly on the right foot, beyond some set-up changes that are still clearly necessary.
Red Bull convinces again
The RB20 has shown excellent results both in turns and in acceleration, although for now not with that incredible disproportion seen in 2023, in which the RB19 dominated all the references with over 10 km/h, be they in the slow sections or in the fast sections. The stretch where Verstappen seems to gain a lot of respect from everyone for now is the last fast S, that of turns 22, 23 and 24, faced by Max regularly with more speed than everyone and which allowed him to obtain excellent times in the third sector. We also point it out because it is a distinctive trait of Verstappen and Red Bull, always capable of making the difference in that section since racing on this track. As far as Alonso is concerned we note a clipping huge on the straights but a decidedly competitive timing performance with the second half. The same Asturian in Bahrain had stated that the Aston Martin program regularly involves using higher engine maps and smaller quantities of fuel in the first free practices, so it seems to us that the cross-referencing of the data with the times confirms that the “big buck” at Silverstone was precisely on the track in very different conditions from Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari. There is therefore great interest in the second free practice session, which will be held in conditions that are decidedly more similar to those of qualifying and the race and which should begin to give some more truthful answers on the values on the track, between set-ups and aerodynamic configurations.
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