After occasions in Japan and Bahrain, Saudi Arabia completes the opening triple-header of the 2025 marketing campaign, with the street-style Jeddah Corniche Circuit welcoming System 1 for a fifth time.
The 6.1km circuit stretches out alongside the Pink Sea shoreline of Saudi Arabia’s second metropolis, and with 27 turns Jeddah has extra corners than some other circuit on the present calendar. The vast majority of these are taken at excessive velocity, in sixth gear or increased, making Jeddah the quickest avenue monitor on the schedule.
The blind nature of lots of these corners – a few of these mere kinks – provides to the problem for drivers. Jeddah normally has excessive monitor evolution by means of the course of the weekend, with qualifying and the race happening at evening, in cooler ambient circumstances than the daytime. Interruptions and delays are additionally seemingly, with all 4 System 1 races held up to now at Jeddah having featured the deployment of the Security Automobile resulting from incidents and accidents.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Group is striving to proceed its sturdy run of kind that sees the staff getting into the fifth spherical of the season in fifth place within the Constructors’ Championship, on 20 factors. MoneyGram Haas F1 Group pair Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman each have prior System 1 expertise on the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Ocon has contested all 4 grands prix in Saudi Arabia, ending a excessive of fourth in Jeddah’s inaugural race in 2021. Bearman memorably made his System 1 debut in Jeddah in 2024, having been drafted in at late discover for Scuderia Ferrari, and labeled in seventh place, turning into the third-youngest System 1 racer in historical past.
Ayao Komatsu, Group Principal: “Jeddah gives the distinctive problem of a high-speed avenue circuit with little margin for driving error. We might be sometimes working decrease drag settings in comparison with the circuits we have been to up to now this 12 months, so how we stabilize the automobile and get the tires to work with such a low drag configuration might be key. That is additionally the primary circuit we go to this 12 months the place Ollie has earlier System 1 race expertise. It is troublesome to foretell precisely how the VF-25 will carry out in Jeddah, however we have been getting most out of it in latest races. We’re trying to carry over this momentum and end the primary triple-header of the season – which may be very demanding for everybody each on the monitor and at our factories – on a excessive.”
Ollie Bearman: “I am very excited to return to Jeddah, it is the primary repeat race of my profession which is fairly cool. Having had the expertise of final 12 months was very good and useful and was a spotlight of my life up to now, having my debut with Ferrari, that monitor will at all times maintain a particular place in my coronary heart. Even earlier than my System 1 debut, I actually loved driving round Jeddah due to its high-speed nature, and the fun of driving at such speeds between the partitions so I am wanting ahead to returning and now having a full race weekend underneath my belt, not simply, FP3, quali, and the race – it must be a great one.”
Esteban Ocon: “Jeddah is an thrilling circuit. I feel this monitor is one which’s actually demanding on the driving force; it is so quick and there is a lot grip, it’s good to get so near the wall and that is how a lot time there’s to realize – the nearer to the wall, you are going to be gaining over a lap. It is the kind of weekend a driver actually enjoys, and you’re feeling the potential from a System 1 automobile. It is going to be extraordinarily scorching there, this 12 months we get there a lot later than earlier than – it is going to be round 40 levels – so it is going to be a problem for all of us and we must be prepared for the warmth. General, I stay up for racing in Saudi.”
