2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Qualifying Review
- Linus O'Howell
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
One of the hardest Qualifying Sessions of the season took place in Round 5 as everyone tried to nail a lap of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit!
Q1
In Qualifying 1, Lance Stroll, Jack Doohan, Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon, and Gabriel Bortoleto were the five slowest drivers. Lance Stroll’s performance compared to his teammate was actually alright, but it still wasn’t enough for Lance to get his Aston Martin out of Q1 whilst Jack Doohan struggled for Alpine! Nico Hulkenberg could only manage 18th, ahead of Esteban Ocon who had an absolute shocker for Haas, whilst Gabriel Bortoleto ended up slowest after spinning on his final run! Max Verstappen topped Q1 for Red Bull, just barely ahead of Lando Norris’ McLaren!
Q2
In Qualifying 2, Alex Albon, Liam Lawson, Fernando Alonso, Isack Hadjar, and Oliver Bearman all failed to make it into the Top 10 shootout! Alex Albon will be really disappointed to have missed out on Q3 by just 7 thousandths of a second, and he will start alongside Liam Lawson who pulled out by far his best performance of the season so far! Fernando Alonso managed to get his Aston Martin into P13, ahead of the other Racing Bulls of Isack Hadjar, whilst Oliver Bearman could only manage 15th as Haas’ day turned out to be a bit of a disaster! It was a role reversal of the Q1 Top 2 as Norris headed Verstappen this time around!
Q3
In Qualifying 3, a 1:27.294 was enough for Max Verstappen to take a fantastic Pole Position around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit! I’m not sure many people expected this heading into the weekend, but this very much felt like a bit of redemption for 2021 for Max as he absolutely nailed it! Oscar Piastri was so unlucky to be just 1 hundredth of a second off Pole, and George Russell was also just another tenth back as the Top 3 starred! Charles Leclerc got the maximum out of his Ferrari to take P4, ahead of the other Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, whilst Carlos Sainz was another star of Qualifying as he will start 6th for Williams! Lewis Hamilton was a long way off his teammate in 7th, but not as far away as Yuki Tsunoda was as Yuki was over 9 tenths slower than his Red Bull teammate! Pierre Gasly will start 9th after a strong showing for Alpine whilst Lando Norris suffered a costly crash in Q3 which means the Championship Leader will start from 10th tonight!
Starting Grid for the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and My Qualifying Grades
Max Verstappen: 10
Oscar Piastri: 9
George Russell: 9
Charles Leclerc: 8
Andrea Kimi Antonelli: 7
Carlos Sainz: 10
Lewis Hamilton: 5
Yuki Tsunoda: 4
Pierre Gasly: 9
Lando Norris: 3
Alex Albon: 7
Liam Lawson: 7
Fernando Alonso: 6
Isack Hadjar: 5
Oliver Bearman: 4
Lance Stroll: 3
Jack Doohan: 2
Nico Hulkenberg: 3
Esteban Ocon: 1
Gabriel Bortoleto: 1
Credit: CarlosSainz
My Predictions for the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Oscar Piastri
Max Verstappen
George Russell
Lando Norris
Charles Leclerc
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