F1 Starting Grid 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Event: Saudi Arabia F1 Grand Prix
Track: Jeddah Street Circuit

Warm-up lap starts at: 20:00 Local | 19:00 CET | 18:00 UK | 10:00 LA | 02:00 Tokio

Sergio Perez was over the moon after he scored his very first pole position today. The Mexican driver needed 216 grand prix and 12 F1 season for it, which is also a record. The Red Bull driver also holds the record for the most races without a win of 190 GP.

Charles Leclerc was only 0.025 sec. slower than Perez and with his teammate Carlos Sainz behind on P3 and Max Verstappen in the Red Bull on P4, we will have an interesting race tomorrow.

George Russell outqualified his new Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton for the first time this season and start from P6. Hamilton who holds the pole position record with 103, had an unusual bad qualifying session. The British driver was +2,143s slower than Perez and will start from P16. It's only the second time in his career he starts from P16. The first time was at the 2009 Turkish F1 GP.

F1 Starting Grid 2022 Saudi Arabian GP

*Notes:

• Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren no.3) received a 3 place grid penalty for impeding Esteban Ocon (Alpine no.31) during Q2.
• Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri no.22) is permitted to start without setting a qualifying lap time.
• Mick Schumacher (Haas no.47) has been withdrawn after his high speed crash in Q2.

2022 Saudi Arabian F1 GP Race Strategy

On paper a one-stop strategy should be fastest for the 50-lap race tomorrow, focussing on the hard and the medium compounds, with the top 10 qualifiers no longer tied to their fastest Q2 tyres to start on. But a lot will depend on degradation levels. If they are high, then a two-stopper is also a good option, being almost as quick as a one-stopper.

In this case the medium looks like the preferred tyre to begin the grand prix, followed by a central stint on the hard and a final run on the medium. But there is also the possibility to use all three compounds, maybe keeping the soft for the final stint.

As seen in qualifying and the Formula 2 sessions, there’s a high probability of red flags, safety cars and other delays, which can completely disrupt the strategy. So while there is a theoretically optimal strategy calculation to work from, in reality the teams will have to just think on their feet and adapt to the race circumstances, which can change very quickly.

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