Saudi report: day 1

A summary of Alex's FP1 and FP2 performances in Jeddah

Published

07 Mar 2024

Est Reading Time

2 min

After making the hop across the Arabian Peninsula from Bahrain to Jeddah, Alex’s first day on track at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit is complete.

Two uninterrupted practice sessions have aided the field, with this fast, flowing, fearless venue requiring drivers to build up their confidence as the weekend goes on.

Despite some strong winds coming across from the Red Sea, the two incident-free hours have allowed Albono to get some valuable mileage under his belt, with four laps over a full race distance completed today.

FP1 is typically an unrepresentative session, but our No23 built himself a solid platform upon which to build. With 26 laps recorded, his best time of 1:30.747 came with red-walled soft tyres bolted to his FW46 and placed him P10.

As night fell in Jeddah, the temperature dropped but the on-track action certainly turned up a notch for FP2.

Alex was able to avoid any traffic chaos to complete 28 tours of the corniche, gathering crucial data not only for Friday’s qualifying but also for Saturday’s race.

With the track getting quicker all the time, Alex’s best FP2 lap was a 1:29.789 – good enough for P14 on the night, with the caveat that other drivers ran their quali simulation programmes at different times.

Albono will head straight to the debrief with an armful of data to help him and his Williams team shape their direction of travel as we head into the first competitive sessions of the Saudi Arabian GP weekend tomorrow.

Bring on FP3 and qualifying tomorrow!