Gasly surprises in Jeddah training: Norris only beaten very thinly!

Gasly surprises in Jeddah training: Norris only beaten very thinly!

Jeddah, Saudi-Arabien - in the first training session for the Formula 1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, Pierre Gasly from Alpine achieved the best time. With a time of 1: 29.239 minutes, he prevailed over seven thousands of seconds against Lando Norris von McLaren, who, as the current leader of the driver's ranking, went into the race. Charles Leclerc from Ferrari followed in third place, only seven hundredths behind Gasly. Oscar Piatri, also in a McLaren, took fourth place, around a tenth behind the best time.

The training took place under demanding conditions, the air temperature was 28.1 degrees, while the asphalt was heated at 49.1 degrees. In addition, the humidity was 71%. All 20 drivers were on the track at 4:32 p.m., and the first lap times were promising, with several drivers who entered the 1:29 time group.

The top times at a glance

The Alpine team showed a remarkable performance after they were previously at the end of the team ranking. In contrast, Piatri had to struggle with a defective drinking hose during the training, which led to a leak in the drinking system and let the drink flow into his helmet. In addition, there was an incident with Liam Lawson, who supposedly did not follow instructions from the race director, which will lead to an examination.

anticipation on the weekend race

The next competition for the teams will take place on Saturday in qualifying, followed by the race on Sunday. The spectators can follow live on ORF 1 and Sky how the events develop. Gasly’s performance in the first training session already arouses speculation about the course of the entire weekend.

In the driver's ranking, Oscar Piatri, who won the Grand Prix of Bahrain and converted his pole position into the second victory of the season, reduced the distance to Norris to just three points. This promises an exciting internal rivalry within the McLaren team, which is currently leading the team classification and hopes for another strong performance in Jeddah.

In addition, Max Verstappen, who ended up in ninth place in the first training session, will face the challenge of increasing his performance after he had to struggle with sub- and oversteer in the last round. Ferrari, after a mixed weekend in Bahrain, also wants to do better in Jeddah.