Charles Leclerc took the top spot towards the end of the session over Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Alfa Romeo's Valterri Bottas. As the Ferrari driver took the soft for a spin in order to set the top time. Meanwhile, Verstappen's time was still set on the hards.
Early speed from Red Bull and Alpha Tauri
Red Bull and Alpha Tauri held a 1,2,3,4 for most of the session, which shows promising speed after a disastrous end to the weekend in Bahrain. I'm sure both teams will be looking to claw back some championship ground in both the Drivers and Constructors if things continue like this during the weekend.
Bouncing continues for Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton and George Russell still struggled with bouncing even on the flat smoother surface of the streets of Saudi Arabia, which would bring more concerns for the reigning constructor's champions as they need to solve these issues before they can be competitive.
Red Flag for a cleanup
After the 50 meter board at turn 1 fell and was disintegrated by Lando Norris when he hit it on entry. The Red Flag was thrown to allow the marshals to clear the track, which saw action stop. Something the Ferrari team would not have hoped for as they saw no running before the red flag. Which would mean their possible running time was cut down by even more.
HAAS hydraulics issues return
Paul Di Resta confirmed on Sky Sports that Kevin Magnussen's HAAS suffered a hydraulics issue just five minutes into the session, requiring a radiator change. A very similar issue to what the Dane suffered in Q2 in Bahrain. Could this be a concern for the HAAS' reliability moving forward?
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2 Comments
Just wondering if the fuel blockage was initially minor which affected performance and gradually worsened as the fuel temperature increased during the race.
If this was the sole issue and has been rectified then every chance RB can find another 0.100secs to 0.200sec per lap.
Qualifying will be very interesting.
Different compounds,times set at different times of track evolution.....only thing a dead certain is that RB and AT has got some really impressive looking top speeds,considering they wouldn't have been running at full tilt at this stage.
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