Formula 1

Max Verstappen topped the times on Friday for Red Bull ahead of the Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Here's how and when to watch qualifying.

[PlusPlusFormula 1Saudi Arabian GP ](/f1/news/testing-times-for-vasseur-but-the-true-challenge-at-ferrari-is-about-to-come/10443879/) The temperature is set to be 27 degrees Celsius at the start of qualifying. For the entire 2023 F1 season, Channel 4 will broadcast highlights of every qualifying and race of each event. In the United Kingdom, Channel 4 is broadcasting highlights of qualifying for the Saudi Arabian GP at 8:50pm GMT on Saturday evening. Sky Sports can also be accessed through NOW with a one-off day payment of £11.98 or a month membership of £34.99 per month. Live streaming through NOW is also available in the UK.

After struggling on the first day of running at this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton labelled Mercedes' 2023 challenger, the W14, ...

He concluded: “That’s for the guys and girls back at the factory, everybody here to unpick the data. But until that happens, Hamilton says the team must continue to work with what they have, and try to find a way to make the W14 "easier to drive". Russell was overheard on the radio in FP2, saying his team needed to make big changes overnight. But for me I definitely struggled in the session, I struggled in both sessions.” After jumping out of the cockpit for the final time on Friday, Hamilton was asked whether the car felt better to drive in the evening session, to which he said: “Pretty much the same. Hamilton was knocked out in Q1 at last year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, in the W13.

TEAM REPRESENTATIVES Toto WOLFF (Mercedes), Franz TOST (AlphaTauri), James VOWLES (Williams), Alessandro ALUNNI BRAVI (Alfa Romeo)

I want to see now with the next steps that we go in the right direction, that we can improve the performance of the car, that we are able to do this. AAB: For us it has been really important, as we showed last year, that it allowed us to be more competitive and of course during the period there will be a convergence between other teams that are sitting at the back and the teams that are in front. But I have to say, he's now been in the car, I now have the ability to look at his data, and he is here on merit, and as a result of Williams investing correctly in him, he's now a professional driver deserving driver on the grid at the same time. And if we see that is not enough to actually challenge for the front, then there might be more radical decisions that need to be taken. But you need to have the environment where you have no fear about what the implication is on the relationship, but more that you both want the same goal of moving forward. He’s at the stage of a career where we trust each other, we have formed the great bond among each other and we have no reason to doubt each other, even though this is a difficult spell. But this is very simple: the stopwatch never lies, and we see on the data where we are missing and that needs to be corrected. And at a certain stage we came to the conclusion, we got this wrong. This is a technical sport so maybe my role was to translate it in a way that we actually were able to execute it in the car design. I hope that at least we are with one car in Q3, but we have to do a lot of things to make the car faster. And now we have to prove that we're not happy where we've landed, we're overall not happy about the amount of downforce, the mechanical balance, I mean all of it, it never comes alone. I think that he had the very best start of the last two years with us, and then we had a solid performance in the race, which confirmed what we have seen during the test.

The Mercedes driver along with Red Bull's Sergio Perez, Lance Stroll from Aston Martin, Alpine's Esteban Ocon and Kevin Magnussen of Haas were the second group ...

So that part of my job I’m excited about,” he added. “And I feel like it needs to do more. The sport’s human rights problem has never been more glaring,” Foa added. All the opposite to everything they said.” “We are proud of all our partnerships and look forward to building on those in the years ahead,” the statement read. “When I’m going to these different places, I still feel that as a sport going to places with human rights issues, such as this one, I feel that the sport is duty bound to raise awareness and try to leave a positive impact.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia - Toto Wolff admitted on Friday he would not blame Lewis Hamilton for leaving Mercedes if the team failed to give him a realistic ...

“The data that we have extrapolated showed us that this works. “You can see that the three quickest cars, including the Ferraris, have a similar concept of how they generate performance. “It will be so nice when we come out of this valley of tears and come back to solid performances. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t catch them up. We would much prefer to be at the front, but it isn’t the way it is.” “You just redirect your energy.

A stomach upset delayed Verstappen's arrival in Jeddah by 24 hours. Read more at straitstimes.com.

“Yes, copy,” retorted his pit wall, seemingly sensitive to the team’s need for a changed approach as they seek to reverse their slump. “We need to make some big changes,” said Russell in a stern voice. His Aston Martin appeared to be the only car capable of fighting with them. Verstappen with 1:29.952 ahead of Perez until Alonso, on softs, split them again. The close dicing at the front continued with the Red Bulls narrowly ahead of Alonso and then a gap of two-tenths to the pack led, after half an hour, by Hulkenberg and Gasly. Alonso’s performance confirmed his speed this year after a strong showing to finish third in the season-opening race in Bahrain, but it was Verstappen who set the pace with some ease.

DRIVER GROUP 1 – Valtteri BOTTAS (Alfa Romeo), Yuki TSUNODA (AlphaTauri), Alex ALBON (Williams), Lando NORRIS (McLaren), Carlos SAINZ (Ferrari).

And as a sport, I think we are able to also help the country to evolve and for the people that that live here. EO: Well, I'm obviously focusing on myself and you know, the job I have to do with the team, in a way that we have to develop this car, understand the issues that we have, and I'm very focused on doing that. We need the Red Bulls not to finish the race, the Ferraris not to finish the race, and maybe now the Astons not to finish the race, for us to be winning at the moment. And I'm looking forward to the challenge of trying to figure out whether or not we are closer this weekend or whether we are further behind. But you know, Bahrain, the race weekend was almost just like, every lap was just more and more experience in the car and getting to grips with it and learning more about the car every lap. A lot of what we have already is working well, as Andrea has mentioned, what we have in the wind tunnel and what we have on track is correlating well at the same time and we have obviously a lot of new things coming. We're not doing a good enough job with what we have but we all know that and we know that we have some more things coming but at the same time, we have to do better than what we're doing currently. I think it was a good solid race for the first race of the of the season. We are the first ones that are not happy with how this first race went and we are the most bothered about it. And I think the right exam has to be done a bit more later in the year and towards the end of the year, because also one other area where I think it's important is development and the capacity to improve the mistakes that you do. It's not the way you want to start a season with a penalty in race two, and break in the battery, the ECU in the first weekend and clearly we are not happy with that and we identified as a weakness but this is the first time we've seen this failure in a very, very long time so it caught us by surprise. I think the track is completely different to Bahrain: the tarmac, the high speed nature, the wing level that we will run, everything is just a bit different now compared to Bahrain, and I have the feeling that we're going to be a bit more competitive; enough to beat the Red Bulls, given how competitive and how strong they were in Bahrain is going to be extremely difficult.

Saudi Arabia is preparing to stage two Formula One races, promoter Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal has claimed.

"The decision is not made and there are a lot of things that we need to consider. "We are working very hard to satisfy everyone. There are three races in the US because the market is so big there and there is demand.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen topped both practice sessions on Friday, leading Alpine's Fernando Alonso by two tenths of a second in FP2.

[PrimePrimeFormula 1 ](/f1/news/testing-times-for-vasseur-but-the-true-challenge-at-ferrari-is-about-to-come/10444080/) Viewers from selected countries can subscribe to F1 TV to stream qualifying on a device of their choice. Here's how and when you can watch qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Saturday.

The second round of the 2023 Formula One season is here, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen looking to win in Saudi Arabia for the second year in a row.

Lewis Hamilton said after finishing fifth that the team had to accept it was the fourth-fastest team, trailing Red Bull, Ferrari and Aston Martin. We spent two weeks in Bahrain, and all became very familiar with the circuit and conditions so the learning curve from this Friday will be a lot steeper. “But we have now shifted all our focus to this weekend and Jeddah. When it comes to ranking Formula One drivers, you’ve got two straightforward choices: go from whoever’s got the most points to whoever has the least, or from whoever has the least to whoever has the most. What most surprised you about the opening race of the season? Jeddah is a street circuit, which means overtaking during the race is very difficult. If you can only spare us a few hours this weekend — stick with us today, as recent history would suggest qualifying in Jeddah will be more exciting than the Grand Prix itself. Using Google Earth to brainstorm possible track layouts, the company and F1’s motorsports team delivered not only one of F1’s fastest circuits, but one of the quickest built. It might not take Lewis Hamilton very long to follow Angela Cullen out of the door at Mercedes. And [this is a quick guide to porpoising](https://theathletic.com/4248645/2023/02/24/porpoising-formula-one-rule/). [here’s how time penalties work in the sport](https://theathletic.com/4285755/2023/03/08/f1-time-penalties-esteban-ocon/). Qualifying for the Saudi Arabian GP starts at 8pm local time (1pm EDT, 10am PDT, 5pm GMT), using the regular Q1, Q2 and Q3 knockout session format.

Max Verstappen continued to set the pace in Jeddah as the Red Bull driver topped the timesheets of the second practice session for the Saudi Arabian Grand ...

[READ MORE: Perez hopeful of taking the fight to Verstappen in Saudi Arabia amid ‘very fine margins’ at front of the F1 grid](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.perez-hopeful-of-taking-the-fight-to-verstappen-in-saudi-arabia-amid-very.6JyFv11UK3axKT61qyg2hZ.html) [DRIVER MARKET: Why Wolff is ‘absolutely confident’ Hamilton will extend his Mercedes contract amid silly season talk](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.why-wolff-is-absolutely-confident-hamilton-will-extend-his-mercedes-contract.BcawunowVcm67F1LobGYa.html) [10-place grid penalty](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.ferrari-make-further-power-unit-changes-ahead-of-saudi-arabian-gp.1CM1vCm7Q0xGV95ZYRVRNe.html) for Sunday's race, heard complaining of engine issues late in the session. [ timesheets in FP1 ](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.highlights-watch-the-action-from-fp1-at-the-saudi-arabian-grand-prix-as.3Y0A3nys7tP8JuRseTgzfz.html)– who led the way in the customary FP2 qualifying simulation runs, setting a time of 1m 29.603s, with his nearest challenger, Alonso, 0.208s behind, with last year’s pole-sitter, Perez, who was third quickest, 0.299s behind his team mate. [opening practice hour](https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.fp1-verstappen-heads-perez-as-red-bull-lead-the-way-in-first-practice-at.7HwrQndBJ8d0EmQ2E2PsgU.html) on Friday afternoon, the drivers came out onto a much cooler track for FP2, with the sun having set and the floodlights turned on – in what were much more representative conditions to those they will face in qualifying and in the race. Max Verstappen continued to set the pace in Jeddah, as the Red Bull driver topped the timesheets in the second practice session for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, placing ahead of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso and his team mate Sergio Perez.

Follow the third and final F1 free practice session for the Saudi Arabian GP live. Keep up to date with everything that happens during FP3 at the Jeddah ...

In the blog, we will provide you with the latest developments during FP3 in Saudi Arabia. You can easily switch between live timing and the live blog via the tabs. Below you will find our dedicated live blog and live timing hub; the times refresh automatically during the session, so you are always up to date.