The circuit of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia has the highest average speed in the championship, a record that seems destined to be easily beaten by the ‘track’ that will host the Las Vegas Grand Prix. The first section of the Saudi circuit is mixed and characterized by several changes of direction, but after the ‘horseshoe’ of Turn-13 a second half of the track opens up almost always with the throttle completely open.
Enough tricks
Both 2021 and 2022 witnessed moments more from videogames than from motoring. The culprit was the detection point of the main DRS area, the one on the finish straight, which in previous editions was positioned before the last corner. That unholy positioning led Max Verstappen in 2021 and Charles Leclerc in 2022 to set real ‘traps’ respectively for Lewis Hamilton and the Dutchman with the aim of defending the lead of the race. Verstappen and Leclerc nailed before the detection to be skilfully overtaken by their rivals and be able to counterattack immediately a few hundred meters later.
This tactic almost led to Hamilton’s rear-end collision with Verstappen (the Red Bull driver had to give up his position after cutting the first chicane earlier to defend himself) and an absurd duel between the two-times champion and Charles Leclerc twelve months ago. a battle that eventually rewarded Verstappen who, however, was initially mocked by the Monegasque’s wait-and-see attitude. Finally from this edition – with at least a year of delay – we will no longer see these sad dramas: the detection point before the third DRS zone was in fact positioned after the last corner and not before. In this way, no driver will have an incentive to crash in the straight to have the DRS in favor.
Verstappen penalised
In 2021 Max Verstappen was accused of brake-testing against Lewis Hamilton, or of having deliberately tried to be overtaken or hit by the Mercedes driver. The Dutchman was sanctioned with only 10″ of penalty which did not affect the second place conquered at the finish line, 18 points which thus saw Verstappen and Hamilton arrive perfectly side by side in the standings at the Abu Dhabi grand finale.
#trickery #DRS #finally #Jeddah #FormulaPassion