Everything you need to know about the 2023 Saudi Arabian F1 GP

Red Bull started the 2023 Formula 1 season with the desired performance, as Max Verstappen won the 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of his teammate Sergio Pérez in an utterly dominant outing from Red Bull cars. Now, attention goes to the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and Red Bull expects to have rivals closer during the weekend than they were in the Bahrain round.

Can Ferrari & Mercedes get closer?

Meanwhile, rivals Ferrari and Mercedes will definitely hope to be closer, but it could still not be enough. The important thing for the rest of the field isn't to be closer to Red Bull, but if and when can they catch the Milton Keynes-based squad, which seems like a tall task at the moment.

Red Bull might not have the perfect weekend in Saudi Arabia, as Max Verstappen's stomach issues made him miss media duties on Thursday. On the other end, Ferrari is also under some trouble, as Charles Leclerc is set to have a 10-place grid penalty for the race due to the team putting a third control electronics on the car (already exceeding the maximum for the season).

Leclerc's teammate, Carlos Sainz, has already talked about the reliability issues of the Ferrari car. Leclerc suffered a DNF in the first race, while Sainz was fourth in the event. Sainz admitted the team is 'relatively concerned' about the reliability issues in the Power unit in the first race.

Development race has started

Mercedes will have some small upgrades on its W14, which could help Lewis Hamilton (fourth in the first race) and George Russell (seventh) battle against Ferrari and Aston Martin (Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll), two teams that seem to have the upper hand over Mercedes at the moment. Alonso surpassed the two Mercedes cars quite easily, although Hamilton did put up a good fight, at Bahrain on his way to P3 in the season-opener.

On his side, Stroll also took advantage of his car's strengths and finished sixth, even with an injured wrist. In Saudi Arabia, he should be going a lot better.

Valtteri Bottas (FIN) Alfa Romeo F1 Team C43 and Lewis Hamilton (GBR) Mercedes AMG F1 W14

Behind the Top 4, things looked a bit competitive, with Alfa Romeo (Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu), Alpine (Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon), and Williams (Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant) scoring points at Bahrain with one of their drivers (Bottas, Gasly, and Albon, respectively).

Haas (Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen) and AlphaTauri (Yuki Tsunoda and Nyck De Vries) will be looking for better luck in Saudi Arabia after finishing outside the points in the first race.

On its side, McLaren (Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri) is in desperate need to find performance, as the team's MCL60 looked like the worst of the grid during the race in Bahrain. However, the Woking team will be looking for a resurgence similar to the one they had in 2022. The team's two cars finished 14th and 15th out of 17 finishers in the 2022 Bahrain GP, but McLaren followed that result with three consecutive scoring finishes, including a podium at Imola.

2023 Saudi Arabian GP Facts & Figures

The 2023 edition will be the third 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. In its first two editions, the event was celebrated near the end of the season in 2021 and was also the second race of the 2022 F1 season.

The event will be an interesting challenge for drivers and perhaps more than last year, with the new generation cars being quite faster already. The fast, twisty circuit is tremendously difficult and we've seen some big accidents in the two editions of the Saudi Arabian round, both in the race and throughout the weekend.

Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen battled for victory in a controversial 2021 edition that included several ugly situations between the pair of drivers, with Verstappen ultimately penalized for brake-testing the British racer during the race and also walking off the podium.

Hamilton won the first-ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, while the Dutchman went on to win the 2022 race after a tremendous fight against the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, although both drivers even fought to be behind in the DRS detection line in order to enjoy the drag reduction in the main straight, which could be dangerous.

The Pole Positions at the venue have gone to Hamilton in 2021 and to Red Bull's Sergio Pérez in 2022 (his first career Pole).

The event has been under criticism due to accusations of 'sportswashing' human rights issues in the country through hosting international sporting events. Moreover, there was a missile strike at an Aramco facility around 10 miles away from the track and the situation was visible from the track during the first practice session of the weekend.

Despite lengthy meetings between drivers and F1's management, the event went ahead.

In another incident throughout the 2022 weekend at Jeddah, a marshal was fired by the FIA after tweeting that he hoped to see Lewis Hamilton suffering a fiery crash during the event. The marshal was set to work during the GP and indicated in the tweet that he wished Hamilton had a crash like Romain Grosjean's near-fatal accident at the 2020 Bahrain 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. Verstappen won in 2022 with a late overtake on Charles Leclerc and is looking for more in 2023.

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 as the fastest street circuit in the world, and it was stellar to see the 2021 cars flying around the track, but also scary. For 2022, it had some changes to improve the drivers' sensation in the circuit, after some racers complained about the risks of the track.

Moreover, Saudi Motorsport Company, the race's promoter, announced new changes for 2023. Back in November, Formula 1 announced the changes ahead of the 2023 race:

"For next year’s event, special ‘Rumble Lines’ – which ‘shake’ a car, causing traction to be lost and slowing it down – have been added at Turns 3, 14, 19, 20 and 21, while bevelled kerbs have been added in place of steel ones at Turns 4, 8, 10, 11, 17 and 23.

As for driver sightlines, Turns 14 and 20 have seen the shifting of the fence wall on the right- and left-hand sides respectively by 7.5m (T14) and 5m (T20), with an extra ‘Rumble Line’ implemented between the white line and fence wall, while the fence wall has been adjusted at Turns 8 and 10 to give drivers more visibility of the corner ahead.

In the final change, Turns 22 and 23 have seen the ‘S’ shape squeezed via the adjustment of the fence at T23, and the addition of a bevelled kerb – with a view to slowing down the drivers by approximately 50km/h", Formula 1's official website explained.

“The evolution of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit continues apace and we are excited to add these further tweaks to our magnificent track as a result of positive consultation with the FIA, F1 and the drivers.

“The previous two races here in Jeddah have already confirmed the JCC as the world’s fastest and most exciting street circuit and these new developments will only add to the spectacle that fans can expect to see next March when F1 returns to our city", expressed Martin Whitaker, Saudi Motorsport Company's chief executive.

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

The Lap Record during a race was set by Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W12 with a 1:30.734 min lap in the 2021 event.

The race will have three DRS zones, with three detection zones. One DRS zone will go from T19 to T22, with the other two zones located between the high-speed T25 and T27 (last corner) and on the main straight.

2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2023 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: "Jeddah is the fastest street circuit of the year. The track was designed three years ago and has been continually improved since then. This year, there are some new rumble strips on the escape roads while some of the kerbs have been smoothed. A number of the walls have been repositioned, such as those at Turns 8 and 10 (to improve visibility on entry) and Turn 23 (to slow the corner down).

Car setup will be very different to Bahrain. For Jeddah, it's important to have good stability throughout the fast corners that characterise the track.

The circuit offers a medium level of grip but the sand blown onto the surface can influence this on the low-abrasion asphalt. The track, which overlooks the Red Sea, is not especially demanding in terms of traction and braking, with lateral forces predominantly affecting the tyres.

As was the case in Bahrain, this will be another night race – but the start takes place two hours later, at 20:00. This is the same time that qualifying and FP2 is also run. Temperatures are expected to remain largely consistent throughout each of these sessions as well as the race. The other free practice sessions are scheduled for late afternoon, in asphalt temperatures that can easily be 10 degrees hotter."

The minimum starting pressures for the tyres will be 22.5 PSI (front) and 21.0 PSI (rear).

2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Weather Forecast

Friday, Mar 17th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Sunny
Max. temperature: 31°C
Chance of rain: 0%
Humidity: 34%
Wind: 23 km/h

Saturday, Mar 18th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Partly cloudy
Max. temperature: 32°C
Chance of rain: 0%
Humidity: 34%
Wind: 21 km/h

Sunday, Mar 19th - Race
Conditions: Clear
Max. temperature: 32°C
Chance of rain: 0%
Humidity: 33%
Wind: 21 km/h

Who will be on the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix podium?

2022 Saudi Arabian F1 GP podium: 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Charles Leclerc & 3. Carlos Sainz

The picture could be similar to the one seen in Bahrain, with Red Bull running away from the field and Aston Martin possibly having a better race pace than Ferrari to be the second force in a normal event.

With Verstappen expected to run a normal weekend despite missing his media duties on Thursday, Red Bull can count on having its best driver for the weekend. The Dutchman will be looking for his first Pole Position at the track on Saturday and it could give him a comfortable race at the lead during Sunday's event.

Aston Martin should be looking for a better Saturday performance to be closer to Red Bull on race day and not suffer from traffic, but it could still be a tall task for the team, as Ferrari remains solid on qualifying trim, as in 2022.

Mercedes could be in for another challenging weekend, although the German squad should be ready to take advantage of any circumstances that could come from a well-placed Safety Car or red flag during the race. Without it, it should be a tough weekend for Mercedes.

The prediction for the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix podium is 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Sergio Pérez, 3. Fernando Alonso.

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