All info you like to see before the 2022 Saudi Arabian F1 GP starts

The 2022 Formula 1 season has started with the first round in Bahrain, and the Scuderia Ferrari’s 1-2 has definitely put a different tone to the new campaign. While Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton were favourites for the first race of the year in terms of odds before the weekend, things have changed for the second event of the year.

Charles Leclerc is according the bookies, the favourite to take home the P1 trophy from the upcoming 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. He started the season in perfect fashion, while Verstappen and Hamilton remain in the Top 5 in terms of odds. These days it's quite easy to find out who to place your bets on. To find out the more about betting news and sports betting you can check out  thegruelingtruth.com and make your picks for the weekend. It's very important to inform yourself about the latest news before placing a bet.

Ferrari & Red Bull on top this season?

Ferrari and Red Bull seem to be clearly ahead of the rest of the field at the moment, while Mercedes is looking to unlock the W13’s potential. The team has suggested that solutions to their new challenger might not be found soon, but the team was delighted to finish 3-4 with Hamilton taking a podium place after the two Red Bulls failed late in the first race. George Russell managed to go to fourth place after starting ninth and looked good in his first race with the team, with a certain consistency.

Leclerc and Carlos Sainz (who has the third-best odds for the upcoming race at Jeddah) could be favourites for the Saudi Arabian round (which has been put into some doubt after a reported hostile attack was rejected by the Saudi forces) as Ferrari is looking strong. Red Bull was strong at Jeddah in the late part of last year’s campaign, but the event was arguably Max Verstappen’s lowest point of 2021 in terms of driving.

Red Bull could and should come back strong against Ferrari in the Saudi Arabian GP, but reliability will need to be heavily worked on to ensure that both Verstappen and Sergio Pérez are free to fight with confidence that they will finish the event.

The midfield at turn one of the 2022 Bahrain F1 GP (Photo by Zak Mauger / LAT Images)

Behind the three biggest teams, we saw Alfa Romeo (Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou) in qualifying and Haas (Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher) during the race, but the upcoming race could definitely be different in terms of the pecking order in the midfield. As of now, Haas is sitting third in the World Constructors’ Championship after Magnussen’s fifth place at Bahrain (Schumacher was 11th), and Alfa Romeo is fourth after both cars finished in the points (sixth for Bottas and 10th for Zhou in his debut).

Alpine did not have its best weekend in terms of overall pace, but Esteban Ocon (seventh) and Fernando Alonso (ninth) scored points at Bahrain. AlphaTauri had one of its cars retiring from the race after Pierre Gasly’s car caught fire on the rear. Meanwhile, Yuki Tsunoda finished eighth to save some points for the Red Bull group.

Aston Martin did not score points in the first race of the year, with Lance Stroll finishing 12th and Sebastian Vettel’s replacement (due to COVID-19), Nico Hulkenberg, managed to finish just 17th.

Apart from Red Bull going home without points, two other Mercedes-powered teams joined Aston Martin in failing to score points: Williams (Alex Albon and Nicholas Latifi) and, shockingly, McLaren. Daniel Ricciardo and Lando Norris struggled to find pace in the entire race in their McLaren cars, and finished just 14th and 15th in the race in what was a terrible start of the year for the Woking-based team.

2022 Saudi Arabian GP Facts & Figures

The 2022 edition will be the second of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in Formula 1 history and the event will be another full-night race at the brand new Jeddah Corniche Circuit, as it was last year, when it was celebrated on December 5th, as the penultimate race of the season.

The event will start at 20:00 local time and should be a big challenge for drivers, as the twisty, fast circuit is tremendously difficult. We saw some big crashes in different sessions last year, and the race could be heavily impacted by an untimely Safety Car period.

Lewis Hamilton beat Max Verstappen at the track last year in a controversial race that saw many bad manoeuvres in the fight at the front, while Hamilton was chasing Verstappen. Eventually, Verstappen could not hold his lead and Hamilton won the race with damage on the front wing of his car. The event included several situations in which both drivers nearly crashed, with Verstappen defending and attacking over the limit.

Eventually, both cars made contact after Verstappen tried to give back a position to Hamilton that he had won 'illegally'. However, he tried to do so before the DRS zone to enjoy that advantage in the main straight, but when Hamilton did not pass him to avoid such a situation, the Dutchman seemed to brake heavily and Hamilton barely avoided a major crash. Verstappen was given a 10-second penalty after the race but did not lose his second place.

Hamilton won the first-ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Jeddah Corniche Track info

The Jeddah Corniche Circuit made its debut in Formula 1 on December 5th, 2021, and it was a big event in 2021, as Max Verstappen had a chance to seal the 2021 title fight, but Hamilton and Mercedes kept it going after a crazy, ugly race.

The track is a 6.174 km long circuit with 27 corners and lots of areas that were high-speed and flat-out in 2021. It is been described the fastest street circuit in the world, and it was stellar to see the 2021 cars flying around the track, but also scary.

The track has been slightly changed for the 2022 event in order to improve the sensation of the drivers. It might not be as fast as 2021, given the aerodynamic changes to the cars, but it will certainly be a challenging event.

Current Mercedes driver, George Russell, criticised the track last year, and he could be happy to see some of the changes made for 2022. The changes to the track were announced in a statement released by the GP’s promoter:
"It has already been confirmed that some minor tweaks will be made to the circuit to help improve driver sight lines from the cockpit by improving visibility in several of the circuit's corners including Turns 2, 3, 14 and 21 where the barriers will be moved back between 1.5m and 2m."

"Likewise, the barrier on the right-hand side of Turn 27 will be moved back by around 1.5m to widen the track at this point. In all cases except Turn 27, the track limit/edge will remain the same.

"In addition, further modifications will also be made to Turns 4, 16, 22 and 24 after consultation with the drivers who requested a smoother barrier on the apex so that they can potentially brush it as they pass.

"To accommodate this, Saudi Motorsport Company is installing a steel plate which will effectively wrap around the concrete barriers given them the smooth surface they require to favour the lines the drivers take around the record-breaking course."

The race distance will be 308.45 km and will be run for 50 laps.

The Lap Record from last year’s race was set by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W12 with a 1:30.734 min lap.

2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will be the C2 as P Zero White hard, C3 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C4 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli explained their choice to go with the medium option with a statement in a press release: “This choice has been made as a result of Jeddah’s track characteristics (both in terms of layout and asphalt), the expected temperatures, as well as the data collected from the debut race in 2021. The new surface from last year offers a good level of grip (scoring three out of five in Pirelli’s classification) and reasonably contained levels of asphalt abrasion (scoring two out of five in Pirelli’s classification), which should lead to moderate wear and degradation.

The severity of the loads and speeds is average, with overall tyre stress scoring three out of five. Due to the rapidly flowing layout, the track is not particularly demanding in terms of traction and braking (scoring two out of five in Pirelli’s classification). A high degree of track evolution over the weekend is expected, thanks also to the Formula 2 support race programme.

The fastest street circuit on the 2022 F1 calendar has changed a bit since making its debut on the calendar last year, as the result of modifications requested by the governing body following a few on-track incidents last time. These largely consist of opening up sight lines through corners by moving barriers further back, while the final turn (Turn 27) has been widened by the removal of a grandstand, which could make the lap slightly faster. Turn 13 (of 27) still features 12 degrees of banking, helping the rapid flow of the circuit that makes it the second-quickest lap of the year overall, after Monza.

The 50-lap Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is the second consecutive night race on the calendar, which means that track temperatures can differ between the sessions - as was the case in Bahrain – with FP2 and qualifying more representative of race conditions. ”

The minimum starting pressures for the tyres will be 23.5 PSI (front) and 21.0 PSI (rear).

2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Weather Forecast

Friday, Mar 25th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Clouded and breezy in the evening
Max. temperature: 27°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Saturday, Mar 26th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Clouded
Max. temperature: 30°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Sunday, Mar 27th - Race
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 33°C
Chance of rain: 0%

Who will be on the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix podium?

Red Bull and Ferrari should be the favourites to fight for the victory in the upcoming 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Both cars are quite versatile at the moment, but Red Bull showed quite a big advantage in straight-line speed at Bahrain.

Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and Valterri Bottas on the podium during the F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah Corniche Circuit on December 05, 2021

Obviously, it could’ve been a setup difference between Red Bull and Ferrari that resulted in a big gap between the two in terms of top speed, but we’ll see if the truth comes out in the upcoming race.

Red Bull will definitely head into the weekend with big urgency, although it is still early in the season. The team will certainly look to stay in its best behaviour throughout the weekend and will work relentlessly in improving the reliability of its challenger.

Mercedes isn’t likely to improve its car in just a week to be competing for a win under normal circumstances, but the team will definitely take advantage of any mileage it will put into the car in the upcoming sessions.

The Ferrari and Red Bull drivers will probably battle for victory at Jeddah, and we could see Red Bull striking right back at Ferrari. Of course, the Maranello-based team will look to carry the momentum into the upcoming race. Right now, with such a short gap between the first two races, Charles Leclerc is now favourite to win at Jeddah and also for the World Drivers’ Championship, which is definitely interesting. Behind the Big Three, which team could have a big weekend? With back-to-back races, we could expect a similar grid this week, although there are always surprises.

The prediction for the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix podium is 1. Charles Leclerc, 2. Max Verstappen, 3. Carlos Sainz.

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