Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc dominated Friday Practice for 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at Jeddah Street Circuit.
Following on from his win in Bahrain, Leclerc continued to set the pace as he topped both practice sessions ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Carlos Sainz meanwhile finished both sessions in the top four as Ferrari continued to look strong across both cars, whilst Mercedes continued to struggle to match the front running pace.
Now here is a full roundup of FP1 and FP2 for 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
FP1
Alpine’s Fernando Alonso was first out on track but it was Verstappen who immediately set the early benchmark on a hard tyre run, as he posted 1m 34.167 just before Haas’ Kevin Magnussen pitted with a session-ending hydraulics leak.
Up front, Verstappen continued to lower his benchmark lap time to an eventual 1m 30.888 which was set in the 17th minute, just before a nine-minute red flag was waved to allow for debris from a 50m marking board which was struck by Lando Norris.
Once the session resumed, drivers jostled for position as almost everyone but Verstappen found improvement towards the end of the session on soft tyres, with Leclerc eventually emerging quickest with 1m 30.772 set just minutes from the checkered flag.
Verstappen, Valtteri Bottas, Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly, Yuki Tsunoda, Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top ten.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1m 30.772 |
| 2 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | + 0.116 |
| 3 | Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | + 0.312 |
| 4 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | + 0.367 |
| 5 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | + 0.545 |
| 6 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | + 0.733 |
| 7 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | + 0.791 |
| 8 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | + 1.254 |
| 9 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | + 1.592 |
| 10 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | + 1.609 |
| 11 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | + 1.734 |
| 12 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 1.810 |
| 13 | Lando Norris | McLaren | + 1.822 |
| 14 | Guanyu Zhou | Alfa Romeo | + 1.836 |
| 15 | George Russell | Mercedes | + 2.067 |
| 16 | Nico Hulkenberg | Aston Martin | + 2.262 |
| 17 | Alex Albon | Williams | + 2.315 |
| 18 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | + 2.757 |
| 19 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | + 3.657 |
| 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | No Time Set |
FP2
The start of FP2 was delayed 15 minutes after drivers were summoned to an emergency meeting less than 20 minutes prior to the original start, in order to receive an update of a drone attack on Aramco facilities just 22 miles away.
Once the session finally got underway, Guanyu Zhou was first out but Leclerc immediately set the pace on medium tyres with 1m 30.216 on his first flier, which he then failed to better throughout the remainder of his opening run.
Verstappen however was able to better Leclerc by 0.002s in the 17th minute on medium tyres with Sainz and Perez rounding out the top four, with the quartet all split by 0.146s ahead of the soft-tyre Qualifying simulation runs.
Leclerc though was the only member of that quartet to improve on his soft-tyre run as he posted 1m 30.074 to top FP2, ahead of Verstappen, Sainz and Perez who all failed to improve during their soft-tyre Qualifying simulations.
Hamilton and George Russell rounded out the top six overall despite not setting their quickest lap times on their opening soft-tyre fliers, with Lando Norris, Ocon, Bottas and Tsunoda completing the top ten.
Outside of the top ten, everyone set their quickest lap times on soft tyres except Daniel Ricciardo and Magnussen who finished 15th and 20th respectively, during a session in which Magnussen suffered another hydraulics failure as race simulations ran smoothly for everyone else.
Yuki Tsunoda’s session however ended with a technical failure at Turn Three as the checkered flag came out.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1m 30.074 |
| 2 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull | + 0.140 |
| 3 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | + 0.246 |
| 4 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull | + 0.286 |
| 5 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | + 0.439 |
| 6 | George Russell | Mercedes | + 0.590 |
| 7 | Lando Norris | McLaren | + 0.661 |
| 8 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine | + 0.686 |
| 9 | Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | + 0.758 |
| 10 | Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | + 0.812 |
| 11 | Fernando Alonso | Alpine | + 0.870 |
| 12 | Pierre Gasly | AlphaTauri | + 0.889 |
| 13 | Mick Schumacher | Haas | + 1.095 |
| 14 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | + 1.298 |
| 15 | Daniel Ricciardo | McLaren | + 1.453 |
| 16 | Nico Hulkenberg | Aston Martin | + 1.541 |
| 17 | Guanyu Zhou | Alfa Romeo | + 1.541 |
| 18 | Nicholas Latifi | Williams | + 1.740 |
| 19 | Alex Albon | Williams | + 1.792 |
| 20 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas | + 2.270 |
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