Concluding the season’s first triple-header, the fifth round of the 2025 Formula One World Championship got underway in Jeddah. Get the thoughts of Lance, Fernando and our team from Saturday’s sessions.
Under the bright lights of Jeddah Corniche Circuit, Fernando and Lance qualified P13 and P16.
Saturday round-up and reaction
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In the weekend’s final Free Practice, Lance and Fernando completed running on the Soft compound, preparing themselves for Qualifying and the Grand Prix.
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Both drivers set 19 laps in FP3, bringing our total Free Practice tally to 121 laps.
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After the sun set and temperatures dropped, Qualifying got underway. Fernando made it through to Q2, where he qualified P13.
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Lance was unfortunately out in Q1, only a small margin of 0.074 seconds away from progressing to Q2.
#18 | Lance Stroll | Qualifying
“Qualifying was our most competitive session this weekend so far. We made some small progress, but we just didn’t have enough pace to get through to Q2, although the cut-off time was very tight.
“We did some set-up changes following the practice sessions yesterday and progressed a little bit, but the car is not easy to drive in the tricky conditions here and we still have plenty of areas to work on and improve. Tomorrow will be all about taking opportunities; we will see how it goes.”
#14 | Fernando Alonso | Qualifying
“Jeddah is one of my favourite circuits and I think I achieved the maximum from the car with P13 in Qualifying. We managed to progress into Q2, but we used up all of our new Softs to get there, so it was always going to be difficult to progress any further than that.
“We have struggled again for performance this weekend and it could be a challenging race for us, but anything can happen on a street circuit like this.”
Andy Cowell | CEO & Team Principal
“We worked hard to unlock more performance from the car leading up to Qualifying, but it’s such a tight grid with a tenth of a second covering a couple of rows. Our session was well managed by the garage and the pit wall with both drivers delivering clean and tidy laps aided by good tyre preparation.
“There is a long race ahead of us tomorrow. We will come out ready to take any opportunity to progress and compete for points.”
Next up
Lights out for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is tomorrow at 18:00 BST.
Friday round-up and reaction
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Our drivers began Saudi Arabia’s first Free Practice on the Medium compound before pitting for Softs in the second half of the session. To conclude Free Practice One running, Fernando switched back to the Mediums for his final stint.
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After a combined 47 laps, Fernando concluded FP1 in P14 and Lance P17.
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Later in the day, it was time for FP2 under the lights of Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Gathering data across the Soft and Medium tyres, Fernando and Lance finished in P15 and P18 respectively.
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In Formula 2, Aston Martin Aramco driver squad member Jak Crawford secured P1 in Qualifying.
#18 | Lance Stroll | Free Practice
“Not the most competitive day for us, but let’s see what we can learn from the data and come up with overnight to improve for tomorrow. Conditions here are tricky and it will be a tough mission to put it all together in Qualifying but we will work hard and put the work in.”
#14 | Fernando Alonso | Free Practice
“We managed to get some clean laps in today, but it looks like the pace is a little behind where we want it to be. There will be a lot of traffic management in Qualifying and you need to have some luck too. We will look at the data tonight and hopefully put together the best package for tomorrow and try our best to challenge for the top ten.”
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