2022 Saudi Arabian GP Qualifying Update

There is less than an hour to go until the drivers battle it out for Pole Position and James Punt has an update for you. You can check out his outright preview here. His 2022 Saudi Arabian GP Qualifying update is below.

Qualifying Update

Today’s qualifying would appear to be between Verstappen and Leclerc but despite Leclerc being fastest in every session so far, it is Verstappen who is the 1.85 favourite and Leclerc 2.63.

FP2 is the more representative session in terms of the conditions that will present for qualifying and the race, but in this afternoon’s FP3, Verstappen had to abort his final flying lap after a mistake. He had set purple sectors in the first two sectors but overcooked it and had to back off when heading for a time that would have comfortably beaten Leclerc. The Ferrari set its time at the very end of the session when conditions were at their best.

We have 2 points on Verstappen @ 3.00 to be the fastest qualifier and It does look like his to lose, and he could, but hopefully what he did today and did here in last year’s qualifying will make him a little more circumspect, without being slow.

Sergio Perez was third quickest and just under 0.10 slower, and that bodes well for Verstappen’s chances.

Mercedes Struggle

Elsewhere we see the Mercedes powered cars struggle on what is a power circuit. The seven slowest cars were all powered by Mercedes and their fastest driver was Hamilton in eleventh place, and he was three tenths slower than Tsunoda in tenth.

Hamilton and Russell were 5th and 6th in FP2, and they may go better under the lights, but there is a chance that both Merc drivers fail to reach Q3.

Bottas continues to fly in the Alfa Romeo and is in the hunt for a third row start tomorrow. Ocon in the Alpine has put Alonso in the shade all weekend, Magnussen has had lots of reliability issues in his Haas, but when it goes, it goes fast, and he looks good for Q3. The two Alpha Tauri cars were quick, both in the top 10 but both have had big reliability problems which doesn’t bode well for their chances tomorrow.

There is not a lot of interest odds wise. It is just about worth backing Ocon to out qualify Alonso. He went well here last year and has been quicker than Alonso in every session so far this weekend, the Spaniard does seem to be harder on the tyres than Ocon.

2022 Saudi Arabian GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Ocon to out qualify Alonso @ 1.85 with Pokerstars

Ricciardo is a tempting price to out qualify Norris @ 3.60. He has been faster in two of the three sessions but was miles off Norris in the more representative FP2. However, Ricciardo never got a run on the soft tyre which explains the big difference.

2022 Saudi Arabian GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point Ricciardo to out qualify Norris @3.60 with Pokerstars

There will be a race update tomorrow, hopefully a few hours before the start of the race.

-JamesPunt