The Jeddah circuit is the third unpublished track faced by the teams in the current season, offering as always on such occasions an additional challenge on the front of the set-up. Despite the preparation of a preliminary set-up using the work done on the simulator, on the track there are often differences between the expected and actual conditions of the track, requiring some corrections even more than what happens in the other appointments on the calendar. The asphalt in Saudi Arabia also guarantees a high level of grip, a feature used by some teams to reduce the level of downforce over the weekend.
The high top speeds and the preponderance of high-mileage curves put them on paper McLaren particularly comfortable in Jeddah. Since FP1, the Woking team has adopted an approach aimed at evaluating two different set-ups in parallel, and then analyzing during the night which one to use in qualifying and the race. “Lando and I worked on two different setups, I saw that other teams have also opted for this strategy. We have to decide tonight which set-up to adopt“Declared Daniel Ricciardo a Sky Sport F1. Looking at the images from Friday, it can be seen that Norris rode in both free practice sessions with a spoon-shaped rear wing, characterized by a downward curve in the center and a reduction of the rope on the sides, the same used also in Baku. On the other hand, Ricciardo played Friday sessions with a more heavily loaded straight-profile winger, but in the end the team’s choice fell on the more discharged specification tested by his box mate.
The aerodynamic garments adopted in Baku constitute a useful reference element with which to evaluate the choices of the teams in Jeddah. The average distance on the lap of the Azerbaijani track is 213 km / h, while in Saudi Arabia the wall of gods was broken 250 km / h, but despite the lower average speed, the optimal downforce for Baku is slightly lower than for Jeddah. The first is in fact a track characterized by tight 90 ° curves where the mechanical grip of the car emerges, while Jeddah presents exclusively high-speed corners where the aerodynamic load acquires relevance.
In Baku, Lewis Hamilton had raced the Grand Prix with a higher load level than Valtteri Bottas, with the aerodynamic outfit used by the Englishman at the time which was revived on both cars on the Saudi Friday. In Jeddah the Mercedes therefore, it did not evaluate different aerodynamic configurations as McLaren did, relying solely on the adjustment of the incidence of the profiles, the height from the ground and the calibration of the suspension to optimize aerodynamic behavior. It should be underlined, however, that in FP2 Bottas rode with a slightly lighter configuration than his box mate, with the rear wing not equipped with Gurney’s flap, a solution that was then also taken up by Hamilton himself from FP3 onwards.
In recent appointments Mercedes approached the free practice days with a single starting aerodynamic outfit to be optimized during the sessions, immediately showing a great effectiveness of the preliminary set-up set in the factory. Red Bull on the other hand, both in Qatar and in Saudi Arabia it took advantage of the free practice sessions to compare the different wings at its disposal. In the transition from FP1 to FP2, in Jeddah the RB16Bs changed the rear wing reducing the load level, a choice also dictated by the high grip found in the road surface. The lighter configuration is recognizable by the different shape of the spoon of the main profile, but also by the simplification of the external vertical strips of the endplates, without the blow molding and external profiles. The configuration adopted by the Milton Keynes team from FP2 onwards is closest to that used also in Baku.
Ferrari on the other hand, it maintained a stable aerodynamic look both on Fridays and Saturdays, using the intermediate load wing characterized by the main spoon profile. In comparison with the choices for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ferrari adopted a higher load level than Jeddah, contrary to Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren which settled on configurations similar to those of Baku. The choice of Ferrari is partly dictated by the different needs of the two tracks, but also underlines the change of approach matured by the Scuderia di Maranello over the course of the season. If at the beginning of the championship Ferrari tended to adopt extreme settings with less load to compensate for the shortage of horses on the straight, from mid-season onwards the Italian team opted for a heavier and more balanced set-up to better manage the tires. This change was also encouraged by the progress of the power unit in particular on the hybrid front, which provided that additional power readily exploited to accept the greater resistance to running resulting from higher load structures.
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