november 30, 2021 - Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport

2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix - Preview

Round 21 of the 2021 Formula One season takes place at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, for the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Toto Talks Saudi Arabia
Fact File: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Stat Attack: #saudiarabia and Beyond

Toto Talks Saudi Arabia

Two races to go, and two Championships still to be decided. We are all excited to still be in the fight at this stage in the season, it’s a privilege and a testament to our resilience when we see where we stood in the early summer. Both titles are wide open, and our mission is clear.

Last time out we saw a faultless drive by Lewis in Qatar, commanding the race from start to finish, and a strong recovery for Valtteri before the unfortunate puncture took him out of contention.

The car has been performing well recently and is probably in the best place it has been all season, with the drivers confident to push it to the limit. That’s encouraging for the final races and gives us strong momentum to take forward.

Jeddah is another completely new challenge, an all-new track to get to grips with and a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to ensure we hit the ground running on Friday, because getting as much information as we can during those initial sessions will be vital.

It’s a fast street circuit with long flat-out sections and several high-speed corners, lined by barriers meaning it’ll be high risk and reward. We’re more motivated than ever and we expect to be in the hunt, so we are all looking forward to the debut grand prix in #saudiarabia.

Just a few days ago we lost Sir Frank Williams. He will be in all our thoughts this weekend and we’ll try our best to deliver a performance that’s worthy of his #racing spirit.

Fact File: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

The venue for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is a temporary street circuit located on the Corniche – a waterfront area in Jeddah, next to the Red Sea.
The waterfront location presents similar challenges to Abu Dhabi, blowing sand onto the track and experiencing wind shifts from daytime to the evening.
The Jeddah Corniche Circuit has the most corners of any track on the F1 calendar, with 27 – 16 left-handers and 11 right-handers. The number of corners does make it more challenging for both the team and the drivers to learn the track and get up to speed.
The track is one of only four on the current schedule - after Bahrain, Austria and Mexico – to feature three separate DRS zones. These are located on the main straight, from Turns 18-21 and Turns 25-27.
At 6.174 km long, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix venue is the second-longest circuit in F1, behind only Spa-Francorchamps (7.004km). Because of the long track length, energy management is very difficult, which puts more focus on the performance of the MGU-H and hybrid systems.
The street track nature of Jeddah means there is a higher risk of a Safety Car, with incidents taking longer to clear and the fast corners potentially causing bigger accidents. A long track combined with being a street circuit also means more potential for mistakes to be made.
Jeddah has billed its track as the ‘fastest street circuit in the world’ with expected average speeds of around 250 km/h. Baku isn’t too far off, but Jeddah’s average speed is helped by several of its corners being taken flat-out or in DRS zones.
Drivers will hit over 310 km/h three times on the long straights and with the three DRS zones, we’re anticipating Jeddah to rival Spa and Monza for the highest percentage of time spent at full throttle.
79% of the lap distance is taken at full throttle, one of the highest percentages of the year.
Turn 13 is a banked corner, with a 12% gradient. Banked corners open up more potential lines through the corner, which will make for an interesting challenge and also help drivers build momentum onto the next flat-out section.
Similar to Baku and Silverstone, the track layout at Jeddah is expected to be more focused towards a lower-drag, lower-downforce wing level.
We anticipate Turn 2 to be the slowest corner on the track, by far, being taken at just 90 km/h. The quickest will be Turn 26, located on the back straight in the final DRS zone, where drivers will reach around 310 km/h.
The newly laid track surface is expected to be very smooth and high grip, therefore tyre overheating will be less of an issue and we should see low levels of tyre degradation.
However, because it is a new surface, there is the possibility of a similar situation to Turkey in 2020, with an oily and more slippery surface, particularly if it rains (which is probably unlikely in Saudi Arabia).
Due to the new and ‘green’ track surface, which hasn’t been properly rubbered in, the track evolution is going to be incredibly high over the weekend. It will also mean running offline will be punishing, due to the sand and lack of rubber.
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is a night race, so alongside lighting the buildings and bridges, there are expected to be over 600 light posts illuminating the track.

Further information in the press release to download

- Photogallery (2)

211129 Jeddah

4001x2250, 776KB

M291155

4588x3059, 2MB

- Documents (3)

2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Stats Sheet

342KB

description

5KB

Press release

223KB

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