F1 News: 2025 GP of Saudi Arabia Post-Qualifying Quotes

All ten Formula 1 teams plus tire supplier Pirelli provided quotes after qualifying for the 2025 GP of Saudi Arabia at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. In a close battle, Max Verstappen beat Oscar Piastri for pole while Lando Norris crashed out.

Red Bull

Max Verstappen Position: 1, Time: 1:27.294

“It is really nice but definitely unexpected to get pole today. The Team made some final adjustments going into Qualifying which allowed me to be a bit more comfortable in the car and attack the corners.

“Our progression in Qualifying was really nice: we tried to improve run by run and it felt good in the car and we made things a lot more comfortable. The tires were overheating less which was positive, we found the right balance and when everything cooled down a bit, the car came alive at night.

“I’m really proud of the Team, after the red flag they stayed calm and chose the right strategy. I wasn’t entirely sure what the right call was and then GP came on the radio and the Team were definitely right. It is always a Team effort, all the engineers helped with this and helped improve on particular corners. I knew what I had to do to beat the lap record but it’s always extremely rewarding to put a good lap together here.

“Looking to tomorrow, it will be a bit more tricky as here you can pass if you have more pace. There are a few more DRS zones, so it will be difficult to keep everyone behind but we will give it everything that we have.”

Yuki Tsunoda Position 8: Time: 1m28.204s

“It was an okay Saturday to finish P8. Congrats to Max on pole, he did a great lap. My last push lap in Q3 was quite messy and I was expecting slightly more today. We are still learning and it feels like there’s always something that happens when I push more, unpredictable things happen, and it’s been quite difficult to put everything together for a clean lap. It’s pretty frustrating when I can’t put it all together in Q3 when it counts, but it is at least positive to be in Q3 again this weekend. Some of the difficulties are due to experience, it is only my third race with the Team but my confidence is building up in the car, I have to keep pushing and we want more. Hopefully we can be more consistent in the race tomorrow, our setup is more focused on the long run rather than the short run and I had more confidence in those laps. I will do my best to overtake and to finish with good points.”

Christian Horner: Team Principal and CEO

“Coming into Quali off the back of FP3 it was all about who was going to be third and then suddenly in Q1 Max went quickest. In Q2 we were right there and then there was the unfortunate accident for Lando in Q3, thankfully he was okay, but it meant there was only three cars with two new sets left, which was Oscar, George and Max. We had to make a decision as a Team and the driver has to buy into that and be happy, we elected to do the two timed laps and that puts you under pressure because if there is any issue at all you have lost that margin. A great call by everyone.

“What was so impressive for me was because Max had to take the pitstop to change tires, he had to carry the six or seven kilos more fuel than anyone else, and then he went quickest on that first lap. That put the pressure on the other guys and then his last lap was outstanding. To get that pole, our second in the last three races, is phenomenal and really rewarding. It was a wonderful performance by Max and the Team.

“The set-up changes we made definitely helped, and it gave Max a car he could attack with, we still expected to see a margin to the other cars but it seemed to disappear this evening and Max set a track record out there. We will have a fight on our hands with Oscar tomorrow but we are starting in the best possible position. It was good to have Yuki up there in Q3 as well, he is really finding his way in this car and with the Team. I have been impressed by how calm he is, he was in the ice bath 10 minutes before the session! We are super satisfied with him, and he is right up there to win good points tomorrow.”

McLaren

Lando Norris, 10th, No time set in Q3

“A disappointing end to Qualifying but I know what I have to do tomorrow. We have a good car, it’s quick and I’ll work with the engineers overnight to put a plan in place to work my way up the field. Thank you to the entire team for their hard work this evening, I’m ready to go again tomorrow to score some strong points.”

Oscar Piastri, 2nd, 1:27.304

“First of all, it’s great to see Lando is okay. Overall, I am happy with the job we did today. Being so close to Pole is frustrating but we didn’t have much more in it and Max did a great job. I think we can fight from where we are as our pace is good, so we’re in a strong position to challenge for the win. I think it’s going to be a tough but fun race.”

Andrea Stella, Team Principal

“Firstly, the most important thing from today’s Qualifying session is that Lando is okay and ready to race tomorrow, after a rare accident from him.

“Today showed us we have the pace as a team to consistently fight for the top positions in Qualifying, but we have seen once again how tight the field is and how a few milliseconds can make the difference, like in Suzuka. Oscar did a great job today, narrowly missing out on Pole to Verstappen, who looked quick throughout the Qualifying session, as did Russell.

“Both Oscar and Lando have been fast all weekend, so we are confident in the pace of the car. The team and both drivers will be looking to make progress tomorrow and we believe we can fight for the victory in tomorrow’s GP.”

Mercedes

George Russell
P3 is a great result for us this evening. If you had offered us third before the session, I think we would have taken it. Seeing how tight the field was at the end of Q3 though, you do begin to think about where we might have found that extra tenth to claim pole. Nevertheless, we should be pleased. It was a tough session with the red flag taking away our first lap. The only thing that mattered then was that final effort and I think we did a good job to deliver a solid starting position for tomorrow.

It is going to be a long race so we should be able to put our race pace to use. We looked competitive on Friday, even if Piastri in the McLaren looks to have an edge on the rest of the field and will be difficult to race. P3 gives us a chance to fight for the podium again and hopefully we can get on there for our fourth top three finish in the first five races of 2025.

Kimi Antonelli
That was a very intense Qualifying! The session as a whole went well, and I continued to build my speed. I had a big snap on my first lap in Q1 and had to burn a second set of new tires to get through to Q2. That wasn’t ideal but we still made it through to Q3 and, with the red flag, it all came down to the final effort anyway. I need to rewatch my lap to see exactly what happened, but I had a moment in the first sector that cost me a few tenths. That was a shame as the rest of the lap was strong and I think we could have taken P4.

I’m feeling more and more confident each and every weekend. This track is such a big test as you need lots of confidence and to get really close to the walls through the high-speed corners. Step-by-step, and the more experience I’m getting, I feel like I’m starting to put it all together with more consistency. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though and see what we can do tomorrow. It will be a long race and hopefully we can bring home some solid points for the team.

Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO
That was an exciting Qualifying session, even if we ended up on the wrong end of the top three. There was very little between ourselves, the McLarens and the Red Bull of Verstappen in the end. You would always want to be starting from pole position, but we didn’t expect to be in the fight for P1 after FP3. George did a great job therefore to put the car in the mix and he will be looking forward tomorrow.

Kimi meanwhile, once again put in a strong performance despite it being so early in his F1 career. He made a small mistake in the first sector which cost him a couple of tenths. Without that, he would likely have been P4, but P5 is still a great starting position.

The car seems to be provided a stable platform for us to work with. Over the first five races, we’ve been consistently in the fight for the podium and hopefully we can keep that going in tomorrow’s race. The McLarens looked to have very strong long run pace on Friday, so we think it will be difficult to fight Piastri for the win. Let’s see what happens though and, as always, we will be giving it our all.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
We had a decent final practice session, and the car was working well. Like Bahrain though, it looked like McLaren would be totally out of reach in Qualifying. In the cooler conditions later in the evening though, the W16 car was working much better than in FP2 yesterday. That was a pleasing development and meant we were able to stay close to the front. With Kimi, we used a second set of Soft tires to get through Q1. As it turns out, he’d have just made it through with his first lap, but we rightly didn’t risk that. From there on it was straightforward to get both into Q3, George with two new sets and Kimi down to one.

The timing of Norris’s red flag wasn’t ideal as it came out just before both our drivers would have completed their first laps. That meant it all came down to the final efforts at the end of the session. Neither lap was perfect, with both drivers quite rightly making sure we got the laps in to put a time on the board. Kimi had a poor first sequence but finished strong and we’re pleased to see him secure P5 on the grid. George was looking close to the times Verstappen and Piastri set but lost a little in the final corner to put him P3. Overall, we’re left with a sense we could have achieved a bit more but in many ways it’s a healthy sense of frustration. We’ve improved a long way since last year and we’ll keep pushing. The points are all to play for tomorrow and there should be plenty of opportunity as it’s rarely a dull race here in Jeddah.

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton, 7th, 1:28.201

“Considering how tough practice was, that was a decent recovery in quali. Obviously not where we want to be, but the car felt better out there, so we’re moving in the right direction. My lap in Q3 wasn’t great, but you can overtake here, so the goal’s to fight through and make up ground tomorrow.”

Charles Leclerc, 4th, 1:27.670

“I’m not pleased with P4. I am satisfied with my driving and I have understood how to maximize the car’s potential, but unfortunately, this is the most we can extract from it at the moment. We just don’t have enough grip to carry the kind of speed our competitors are carrying through certain corners, and we have to analyze that.

“I don’t expect any miracles tomorrow, but if we have a good start, a podium could be on the cards. I will give it everything to make that happen.”

Fred Vasseur, Team Principal

“We cannot be happy overall considering the gap to pole position. However we have Charles starting from the second row and Lewis in seventh place so it will be interesting to see how the race pace will be with both our cars. No one did a proper long stint yesterday but since the beginning of the season we have performed better over a long run than on a qualifying lap.

“We have to maximize what we have at the moment and we will fight to collect another good points tally, being ready to take every opportunity that the race might present. One can overtake at this track, so tonight we will be preparing for every possible scenario.”

Williams

Alex Albon, 11th, 1:28.109

“Today was frustrating because we should have been in the top ten quite comfortably, but we missed it. We went out in Q2 when nobody else did and this track is a bit like Monza in that you need the air circulation and in Q2 we didn’t have a tow; I needed two or three cars starting their outlaps or something to get the air moving.

“I was really happy with my lap and we were strong on the straights. We have the car to score points and there are opportunities tomorrow, so let’s see how it plays out in the race.”

Carlos Sainz, 6th, 1:28.164

“I enjoyed pushing the limits of the car today, especially on such a demanding track where confidence makes a big difference. I’m proud of the progress we’re making and felt more at home in the car from the start of FP1.

“The target for tomorrow is to bring home as many points as possible. This will require patience, discipline, and I will need to pick my battles to maximize the race result. Let’s go for it!”

James Vowles, Team Principal

“A great result for Carlos. Really good to see how he progressed session on session. He’s really in control of what he’s doing and working well with the team to get the right run plan and executed it perfectly.

“With Alex, we hold a responsibility towards the result. We were a little bit too early and gave him a clean lap but cost him the opportunity to get to Q3. It was just a few milliseconds that separated him from Q3 and that’s an effect you can get from air circulation and other cars going round.

“The great thing is that Alex has shown pace all weekend, and I think we have two cars that can score points. We’ve got to keep a level head, and Jeddah always throws a tremendous amount at teams, so let’s take every opportunity that comes our way tomorrow.”

Alpine

Pierre Gasly, 9th, 1:28.367

“On the whole, it is positive that we made it back-to-back Q3 appearances after last weekend in Bahrain. Today there were certainly a few things we could have done better, which we will learn from for next time as I am sure we could have been higher than ninth place. The whole team has done a great job and the package is good at the moment. We have put ourselves in a position to fight for points tomorrow, which, of course, is the target. We will need a clean race in a tight field. We know where and who our race is against with Carlos [Sainz] a few places ahead. That’s our aim and I’m looking forward to it tomorrow night.”

Jack Doohan, 17th, 1:28.739

“It’s not the end result we wanted in Qualifying, but, overall, I’m pleased with the steps we made today after a challenging Practice yesterday. We made good steps forward between Free Practice 3 to Qualifying. We were able to work through some things and find some improvements overnight and I immediately felt the positive impact in the first few laps of today where I was much more comfortable in the car compared to yesterday. The end result in Qualifying is not one we are happy with especially being so close to reaching Q2. We remain optimistic and we know overtaking opportunities are better here than other circuits and we will aim to take advantage of a few things like strategy with the ambition of progressing forwards to the points.”

Dave Greenwood, Racing Director

“Wrapping up Qualifying in Jeddah with one car in Q3 for the second consecutive weekend is satisfying but there was potential for more today from that session to have Pierre starting higher up the grid. Qualifying here at this circuit tends to throw up certain challenges, particularly with traffic management or stoppages for red flags. Pierre stringed together some strong laps to progress through each session but every lap took a lot of hard work from the team and the driver to optimize performance. We pushed after the red flag in Q3 to get Pierre two timed laps with a pit-stop between, however Pierre aborted the scrubbed lap and that put us out of sync and we then needed to hold in the box which did not help the tire preparation. The final lap in Q3 did not see any progression from Q2 which is extremely disappointing as the pace was there today in the car. On Jack’s side, the car felt much more connected for him this morning in Practice and again he felt more comfortable in the car in Qualifying, which showed being closer to Pierre at the start of the Q1 session. With where we’re starting there’s a strong chance to move forwards and the aim is for points again tomorrow.”

Racing Bulls

Isack Hadjar, 14th, 1:28.418

“The very first lap of Qualifying I thought we had a nice car and it felt since then we didn’t make any progress. We were simply not fast enough for Q3. You can’t really make mistakes here, it’s concrete walls, not barriers or tires. I have struggled the whole weekend so far, but Liam did a very good job and was able to maximize the car today, it was the best the car could do. I don’t think it’s harder than any other track, it’s just hard to extract the most from it. I think I had two tenths in my lap and that would have been a perfect lap. I expected more on the last lap of Q2, so it’s a bit disappointing. I didn’t have a nice feeling around the lap or consistent balance, you constantly have to adapt corner by corner, which is quite tough. I think it’s going to be a one stop race, so opportunities are limited but I am looking forward to tomorrow and we will try out best.”

Liam Lawson, 12th, 1:28.191

“The work the team have done on the car has been very, very good. I think we did everything we could and put ourselves in the greatest possible position for Qualifying. It’s obviously good to extract everything out the car and I did the best lap I’ve done all weekend, but unfortunately we were just shy of where we needed to be pace wise. It’s tough when the midfield is super close. Every race I’m becoming more confident with the car. We’ve come from a track in Bahrain which is super technical and then you come here and you’ve just got to commit as hard as you can. It’s exciting to drive, it raises the heart rate, but obviously it bites hard as well which we’ve seen today. I’ll try and create as many opportunities as possible tomorrow.”

Claudio Balestri, Chief Technical Officer

“Last night we focused our attention on improving the balance and optimizing the tire preparation, which is not easy on this track due to the track temperatures across the sessions. This morning, in FP3, despite the issue we had on DRS on Isack’s car, we’ve had positive feedback from the changes we made, suggesting the direction was right on setup and tire preparation. Unfortunately, this wasn’t sufficient to enter in Q3 today. We were not fast enough to enter in the top 10 with Liam just missing out by less than a tenth to get to Q3. Our attention now is focused on race preparation for tomorrow and our target is to get some points in the race, we know it’s an eventful one!”

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso, 13th, 1:28.303

“Jeddah is one of my favorite 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.”

Lance Stroll, 16th, 1:28.645

“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.”

Andy Cowell, 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 tire 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.”

Pirelli

MARIO ISOLA – PIRELLI DIRECTOR OF MOTORSPORT

“What a qualifying session that was, especially Q3! In the final five minutes pole position changed hands five times, and as further proof of how close is this season there are four drivers from four different teams in the top four places.

“Of course the Soft was the sole protagonist in qualifying, and on its debut here in Jeddah we saw that the C5 is competitive not just over the first flying lap, but also good for a second attempt.

“When it comes to strategies, we don’t feel the situation has changed since yesterday and it’s no coincidence that, although it’s not yet confirmed, the vast majority of drivers, 15 of the 20 to be precise, have all saved two sets of Hards. The C3 seems to offer the best performance and, without too much degradation a one-stop strategy is on paper the quickest way, with the order Medium-Hard being favorite, pitting between laps 14 and 20. There are a couple of reasons why many have opted to save two sets of this compound: firstly to be ready for any possible safety car situations, which have often been seen at this track and secondly, to have a backup in case there’s a significant step up in degradation tomorrow.

“Those starting from the back end of the grid might aim to make up positions by swapping the order of use of the compounds, (i.e. C4 then C3) pitting from lap 30. A two-stopper is not too far off in terms of total time taken, with a difference of around 5 seconds and would again involve using the C3 and C4. The C5 could be an option for drivers looking to make the most of its superior performance over the first few laps to make up places, or if there were to be a safety car in the closing stages of the race.”