PREVIEW: Gearing up for Round 3 in Jeddah

It’s the second round of our double-header in the Middle East, and there are plenty of questions heading to Jeddah of who will stamp their authority on the 2025 season.

Three winners in three races in 2025 has made for an intriguing read so far, but who will master the high-speed challenge of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit?

WHAT TO EXPECT

There’s no time for teams to catch their breath after the heat of Round 2 in Sakhir, with Jeddah providing another stern test for all 22 drivers.

The fastest street circuit on the calendar runs to 6.174Km and features three DRS zones across the lap.

Free Practice gets the on-track action underway at 12:45 local time on Friday, and is followed by what will be a breathless Qualifying session between the walls. The green light for that is scheduled for 18:00 local.

Saturday is Sprint Race day and 20 laps are scheduled for the evening once again, 18:15 local time. Sunday’s Feature Race follows, getting underway at 16:25 local for 28 hair-raising laps around the super-fast Jeddah track.

Drivers and teams will have the yellow-walled Medium tyres and the purple Supersoft tyres available to them this weekend.

STAT PACK

• This is the closest the Standings have been heading into Round 3, with five drivers separated by just six points at the top of the Drivers’ Championship
• Leonardo Fornaroli leads the way on 26 points, just one clear of Alexander Dunne and Luke Browning, who are next on 25 apiece. Josep María Martí has 23, with Richard Verschoor on 21
• There is a 50%-conversion rate of the Polesitter converting P1 on the grid into Feature Race victory around Jeddah since it joined the calendar in 2021
• Frederik Vesti won the 2023 Jeddah Feature Race from sixth on the grid, the furthest back on the grid the event has been won from
• PREMA Racing are the most successful team in F2 around Jeddah, with three race wins (Piastri, 2021 Sprint 2, 2021 Feature and Vesti, 2023 Feature)

FROM THE GRID – Kush Maini, DAMS Lucas Oil

“Jeddah Circuit is very fast, very high speed. You’ve got to be very bold as the walls – there’s no run-off with it being a street track. Very high grip and very satisfying to put a good qualifying lap.

“There are probably two main spots for overtaking. Turn 1 and the last corner, both coming after DRS zones, so that helps. The rest is quite difficult as it’s hard to follow.

“The biggest challenge is to put a lap together. You can’t lose focus, the intensity is high the whole way, which I really enjoy as a challenge.”

TECHNICAL PREVIEW

Pierre-Alain Michot, F2 Technical Director

“Jeddah is the quickest street circuit of the calendar, teams and drivers will need to find the best car balance in high-speed corners in order to get the maximum performance out of the Supersoft tyres in Qualifying.

“It’s the second time the purple-walled tyres are in use this season after Melbourne, and it will be interesting to see which teams are able to extract the best performance from them in both Qualifying and race-spec.

“Last season, we saw how some drivers were able to take advantage of the Safety Car to make strategic calls work in their favour. With the high risk of a Safety Car intervention, all teams will need to be on their toes in both the Sprint and Feature Race.”

PIRELLI PREVIEW

The Jeddah circuit is one of the fastest on the calendar where the tyres are subjected to high lateral forces. For this street circuit on the shores of the Red Sea, the compounds selected are the Medium and Supersoft, as in previous races at this track. Skipping a compound will allow for a variety of strategies in the Feature Race. In 2024 for example, some of the drivers started on the softest compound before ending the race with a long final stint on the Mediums. Others preferred to make use of the better performance offered by the Supersoft in the closing stages of the race to the chequered flag. For the Sprint, the use of the Medium is pretty much obligatory, given the significant thermal degradation. Safety Car periods, of which there were several last year, usually make for a very unpredictable Saudi Arabian weekend.