It was a typical practice session in Diriyah, as teams got themselves prepared for the final qualifying session of this delightful double-header. Mitch Evans and Jaguar TCS Racing went top of the timesheets with a time of 1m10.154s - the quickest lap of the weekend so far. Yesterday’s Julius Baer Pole Position holder Jean-Eric Vergne (DS PENSKE) was 0.208s behind in second with Maserati MSG Racing’s Maximilian Guenther rounding up the top three.
Nissan and Oliver Rowland slotted into fourth, and Round 2 race winner, Andretti’s Jake Dennis finished in fifth as he tries to ‘do the double’ and win both races of the weekend like TAG Heuer Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein did last year.
Vergne’s teammate Stoffel Vandoorne managed sixth place but was placed under investigation during the session for speeding in the pit lane. Nick Cassidy (Jaguar) got himself his second consecutive podium on Friday, and ended the session in seventh with Sacha Fenestraz in eighth. The Envision Racing pair of Sebastien Buemi and Robin Frijns finished in ninth and tenth, respectively.
It was a cooler practice session for the grid on Saturday, as they took to the track to get more data ahead of the second race of this Diriyah double-header. As the track cleared of all the dust and dirt, times continued to fall with all the grid going at almost two seconds quicker than the best time yesterday - a 1m13.584s set by Andretti’s Norman Nato.
The grid continued their impressive form with no incidents around this high-speed circuit, which has been referred to as a ‘toboggan ride’ by drivers. The only small mistake that we saw came from ERT’s Dan Ticktum who went wide at Turn 18 but managed to get himself back on track as he entered the braking zone. Robin Frijns of Envision Racing made the same error, repeating what he did yesterday by finding the limit towards the end of the lap.
TAG Heuer Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa has been struggling this weekend, as he qualified 20th and finished 16th in Round 2. This theme continued in the final practice session, as he finished in last place with a time of 1m11.474s. His teammate, Wehrlein, won both races here in 2023 but finished the 30 minute session in 14th.