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    Saudi GP: Leclerc completes Friday Practice double in Jeddah

    Charles Leclerc set the pace in both practice sessions at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Friday.

    After his victory in Bahrain last weekend, the Ferrari driver benefitted from clean laps in both the afternoon and evening to set the pace.

    However, it was Max Verstappen who perhaps is the real benchmark as the Red Bull almost matched Leclerc on harder compound tyres in both sessions.

    Practice 1

    Leclerc was fastest on the soft tyre but Verstappen was only a tenth slower on the hard compound in Jeddah on Friday afternoon.

    Kevin Magnussen suffered an early setback to start the weekend as a hydraulic issue confined him to the garage after less than two laps in the Haas.

    Verstappen set the early pace on the hard tyres before a red flag was called to clear up debris from Lando Norris hitting a braking point marker board on the approach to Turn 1.

    A notable part of opening practice was a wide variety of downforce levels with some teams running an almost Monza-style rear wing with low drag, while others continued with similar wing levels to Bahrain.

    Mercedes tested both across their two drivers with George Russell, who was only 15th fastest, joining teammate Lewis Hamilton, who was P9, in opting for less drag.

    After the interruption, Verstappen continued to improve on the hard tyre and was only pipped by Leclerc in the final minutes using the soft tyre on the Ferrari.

    Valtteri Bottas was an impressive third in the Alfa Romeo as Carlos Sainz and the two AlphaTauri’s rounded up the top six.

    Practice 2

    Under the lights in the evening, Red Bull and Ferrari filled the top four places again after the first run on the medium tyre.

    During the low fuel runs on the soft tyre, Magnussen’s day of unreliability continued with an engine failure on the Haas causing him to stop on track and requiring a brief Virtual Safety Car to clear his car.

    Leclerc was the only driver in the top four to get a clean lap on the red-striped tyre and went fastest with a 1m30.074s, a tenth clear of Verstappen’s best on the medium compound.

    It wasn’t all plain sailing however, as he and teammate Sainz would touch the wall on subsequent flying laps causing both to not do a long run in the final 20 minutes.

    Mercedes did their soft tyre laps earlier than most with Hamilton improving to fifth and Russell sixth, but porpoising issues remain obvious with the W13 bouncing substantially on the high-speed straights.

    Lando Norris suggested McLaren were getting on top of their problems in seventh, eight-tenths faster than teammate Daniel Ricciardo in 15th.

    Esteban Ocon was eighth. FP1 high-flier Bottas slipped to ninth and also missed the important race simulation due to an engine problem.

    Yuki Tsunoda was P10 but his day ended in the run-off area at Turn 4 with power unit problems proving a notable theme around one of the fastest circuits on the calendar.

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