Welcome to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – 2025
Norris was unfair on himself – Stella
Lando Norris was once again self-critical following his setbacks last weekend when he said he was “clueless on track” after qualifying, and ‘made too many mistakes’ after finishing third in the race. However, team principal Andrea Stella says his driver was being unfair on himself.
Following the race in Sakhir, where his teammate Oscar Piastri narrowed his lead to three points, Norris said, “Every time I did one thing good, I did two bad in a way. Something’s just not clicking with me and the car. I’m not able to do any of the laps like I was doing last season. The car was just mega and that’s helping me get out of a lot of problems at the minute. But I’m just nowhere near the capability that I have, which hurts.”
Stella told reporters he admired the open approach, wearing his heart on his sleeve rather than erecting a mental screen. Norris throughout his career has always spoken openly and honestly about his mistakes and mental health, working with Mind in his debut season spoke about depression.
Stella added “He is quite self-critical. Other champions in the past, might go on about the problem being elsewhere. It is something important that I admire about Lando, and which makes me very privileged and lucky as team principal, that he absorbs the blame and points it at himself.”
“He raises his hand, absolving the team entirely; ‘It was me, not the team.’ Which is entirely inaccurate. There were things we did that made Lando’s lifeless easy. We know what they were technically.” The Italian says that Norris was adapting to shared responsibility and working with the team and doesn’t blame the team as soon as there is a problem.
Stella added it was the team which needed to help Norris to adapt, but the understanding was good with their being optimism that current problems could be resolved. He says McLaren always shared the blame and “we know that there’s a few things we can do better to make Lando more comfortable in the car.”
Norris conceded he was hard on himself, but it was how he had always operated, and it would be harder still not to show his feelings. He added those first interviews were probably him getting his frustration out because he was not achieving what he wanted to achieve.
But says he knows what he is capable of, adding “Maybe sometimes I lack a bit of self-belief, and I have done in the past, but that’s just also me.”
Red Bull has concerns about Verstappen’s future
Red Bull have revealed “shortcomings” from their wind tunnel have contributed to their car issues and hope future upgrades boost Max Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda’s confidence.
Although Verstappen is only eight points behind Lando Norris that’s down to his performance which allowed him to take a surprise win at Suzuka, but at the other three races this season the team has struggled for pace and the car has looked difficult to drive. In Sakhir, despite the safety car the Dutchman was thirty-four seconds behind winner Oscar Piastri.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko says he has “great concern” over Verstappen’s future, as the Dutchman has performance clauses in his contract that would allow him to leave before his current deal expires at the end of 2028.
CEO and team principal Christian Horner told Sky Sports “I think the problems are understood. The problem is that the solutions with what we see within our tools compared to what we’re seeing on track at the moment aren’t correlating.”
“That’s what we need to get to the bottom of. Why can we not see within our tools what we’re seeing on the circuit? When you end up with a disconnect like that, you have to obviously unpick it.”
Horner also admits the team’s wind tunnel “is not replicating” what they are seeing on track which has created a “mishmash” between their simulation tools and track data. Red Bull will not get a new wind tunnel until 2027 meaning it will be 2028 before they see the full impact.
He says the team needs to understand its weakness, but being at the end of the regulation cycle gains are “very, very marginal.”
The team over the last nine months have fallen from its dominant form and has only won three races, following last year’s Spanish Grand Prix. A fundamental problem Red Bull have is poor tyre management compared to McLaren, Mercedes and, sometimes, Ferrari.
This is compounded by the car not turning into the corner as much as Verstappen wants, which suits his driving style. This combined means the drivers can’t push the car to the limits, but the team knows the problem is entry and mid-corner which isn’t giving Verstappen the confidence to carry the speed into the corners.
Hamilton closer to understanding Ferrari
Following last weekend’s race in Bahrain, Lewis Hamilton says that he is getting closer to understanding his SF-25, while team principal Fred Vasseur says that the seven-time champion needs to adjust his approach.
Speaking to the media during last weekend’s race and published in the last few days, the seven-time champion says this season is one of adaptation as he won’t replace twelve years of collaboration in a few races.
Hamilton told reporters, “That means that for sure we need to improve, but I think this is true for everybody in the team, in the paddock, that we have the DNA for our sport is to try to do a better job and I think it’s good to have Lewis with this mindset to say, ‘OK, I have to improve also myself and to adapt myself to the car.’”
Vasseur added, “We will work on the car to adapt the car to Lewis, but he also has to do a step. And I think this, between us, is done in a positive way and a very constructive way.”
These comments came on Saturday when he qualified ninth before finishing the race in fifth once place behind teammate Charles Leclerc. The Frenchman said “I appreciated the direction of Lewis on Saturday, and I did my best to push him a little bit, and on Sunday he was in very good shape”
But was still looking to manage expectations saying it was important to stay calm in terms of judgement. Hamilton went further saying during his second stint he felt “really aligned with the car. My driving style seemed to be working in that moment.” The key now the Englishman says was getting consistency with the car every weekend.
He added, “I felt really aligned with the car. My driving style seemed to be working in that moment. And so learned a lot today, and this weekend, actually. A lot. Probably more than all the other weekends.”
“The key is to try and get back to it every weekend. It’s clear our car really does require a different driving style, and I think I’m slowly adjusting to that. Also set-up, I’ve been a bit all over the place, a long way from Charles the past two weekends, and then slowly migrated towards him.
Talking Points Jeddah
Round five concludes the first triple header with a night race in Jeddah, one of the sport’s newest races debuted in 2021. The 3.816-mile circuit is the second longest on the calendar and one of the fastest, rewarding high downforce and speed, Red Bull have won three of the four races here.
However, this is another high-speed and downforce circuit where mistakes are hugely costly thanks to the walls being not far away, second only to Monza’s ‘Temple of Speed’ and it has twenty-seven corners. McLaren once again go into this weekend as the favourites winning three of the five races this season.
Oscar Piastri got huge praise following his cool and collected drive four days ago in Sakhir which allowed him to close within three points of Lando Norris who had a “messy” weekend, while Max Verstappen is five further behind. Piastri was certainly the stronger driver from the very start in Sakhir with it not “clicking” throughout last weekend.
Norris says he has a lot of work to do to analyse why he has been unable to get comfortable in this year’s McLaren, and with Piastri now boasting two victories to the championship leader’s one, it is becoming ever-more important that Norris finds answers quickly before his teammate potentially overtakes him in the standings.
Despite them not having strong starts to recent season’s Jeddah has been a bit of an outlier with them being competitive last season. Red Bull struggled last weekend proving uncompetitive following the victory in Suzuka, I feel being another high-speed circuit it could be difficult for them.
The race exposed Red Bull’s weaknesses when it comes to car balance, which has an impact on tyre management and ultimately race pace. There were also several problems in the pit lane, with the driver signal lights not working during the race, and a slow stop for Verstappen due to a stuck tyre for good measure.
One of the stories we covered in this edition is Lewis Hamilton still trying to get to grips with his Ferrari, at points he has called it an “alien” feeling to be driving a very different car at Ferrari than he was used to at Mercedes for the twelve years prior, and he has been trying to understand what his new car needs from him in terms of his driving style.
But was it a Bahraini breakthrough? As after the weekend, he said in his middle stint he felt “aligned” with what the car required. He also called it the most valuable weekend of the season so far based on what he had learned in Bahrain, with the example being set by Charles Leclerc in terms of set-up directions also proving helpful.
Last weekend saw Alpine become the final team to get points on the board with Pierre Gasly seventh place, but it’s tight in the lower half with fourteen points behind Haas. Haas was helped by a double-points finish of their own in Bahrain, their second such result in three races, but Williams is just a point behind.
Lawson denies confidence knock
Liam Lawson denies that his confidence took any knocks after his two races with Red Bull, and contends that he hadn’t driven enough to determine if he was truly struggling. Following just two races the New Zealander was controversially demoted to sister team Racing Bulls in a swap with Yuki Tsunoda.
Asked if he was rebuilding his confidence after a bruising sojourn with Red Bull, Lawson asserted that it never needed to be restored in the first place; instead, his focus was simply on getting to grips with a new car with limited running. He told reporters “Honestly, confidence-wise, nothing really changed from the start of the year. I didn’t spend anywhere near enough time [in the Red Bull] for me to reflect on those two races and go, ‘Oh my god, I’ve really struggled in this car, I’ve lost my ability’.”
“It wasn’t really like that. I did two races that were two very messy weekends from a lot of factors, but I think confidence-wise that didn’t really change. It’s just been about getting used to a new car again, and the team, and trying to do all that as quickly as possible. I think that’s really been where the focus is at. Confidence-wise I feel, honestly, as I always have.”
Lawson believes the difficulties he had were not starting on the front foot in practice and the variables we have seen across the opening four races, these aren’t easy to replicate in the simulator. One of the issues all the teams have had this season has been getting the tyres to work.
He added, “We went from Japan being very cold to Bahrain being very hot and when you’re trying to build the tyre up in the perfect way, that’s a completely unique thing to work on, and you can’t really simulate that in a simulator.”
Ocon expects an ‘intensely physical’ weekend
Esteban Ocon says he is expecting this weekend’s race in Jeddah to be ‘intensely physical.’ The forecast for this weekend is for over thirty degrees at the time of the race according to MeteoGroup, while track temperatures could reach over sixty degrees.
The 6.1km track, which beautifully stretches along the shoreline of the Red Sea with its 27 corners, has been a favourite of Ocon’s since its inception in 2021. Previous races in Jeddah have been held in March or December when its cooler, there’s a chance that temperatures could be much higher than what’s currently expected. Ocon expects extreme heat and humidity.
Even during the night sessions, humidity is expected to stay at around 50%. This could add another challenge to a circuit which is both physically and mentally demanding for drivers, as there is little room for error on one of the fastest street circuits on the calendar, which can lead to accidents, safety cars and red flags.
The Frenchman is looking forward to a weekend of close racing, describing it as “an exciting circuit.”
In Haas preview for the weekend, Ocon said, “I think this track is one that’s really demanding on the driver; it’s so fast and there’s so much grip, you need to get so close to the wall and that’s how much time there is to gain – the closer to the wall., you’re going to be gaining over a lap.”
Medium and low speed corners Williams’s weakness
Carlos Sainz’s move to Williams has been one of the biggest changes however, unlike Lewis Hamilton who replaced him at Ferrari, hiss struggles to adapt to a vastly different car have been more muted.
Sainz has unsurprisingly been outperformed by his teammate Alex Albon so far this season, but after a strong showing of pace at last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix before his car was unfortunately retired, the driver is optimistic for the rest of the season. He told reporters, “I felt like I was, for the first time in the year, being close to extracting… I think the maximum amount of the car in single-lap pace.”
“Still things that I want to improve and fine-tune on. Things here and there with my driving and the setup of the car. We are still struggling a bit with an underlying balance issue that we are trying to get rid of with this car but we are investigating it and really trying to put all of our brain to see what we can do with setup and tools that we have at the track.”
Sainz says it’s a season of making do with what they have, as the team focus is on next year when the regulations change. He also added part of the issue is the cars characteristics in medium and low speed corners, which is also being seen by Albon.
The Spaniard added, “I think as a team, it’s fundamental that we improve this because this might be the thing that is holding Williams back in the last few years, you know, and we need to all together understand it to try and move forward this car and try to apply to [the] next set of regulations.”
But his focus remains on unlocking the potential of the car, which he believes it can bring out the best from the car.
Team principal James Vowles says the intention is to get both cars into Q3 this weekend. He added, “there’s little reason to see that we don’t have the ability to do that. I think the but that comes with this is that one tenth now looks to be separating five cars.”