The second practice of the F1 weekend started at 7.15pm, 15 minutes late. However, the race is at stake, as Viaplay said drivers would not want to continue the weekend in Saudi Arabia because of the safety situation.
25.3. 19: 07 • Updated March 25. 19:41
The first practice of the second race of the Formula 1 season was run in Saudi Arabia on the street track in Jeddah starting at 4pm on Friday.
Ferrari won the opening race last Sunday Charles Leclerc continued his strong mood, being the fastest. The second fastest time in practice was clocked by Red Bull Max Verstappen. The third was Alfa Romeo’s Finnish driver Valtteri Bottaswhich surprised by its sixth place in the opening race.
During the rehearsals, however, the biggest attention was not focused on the track, but on the large cloud of smoke, which was also visible in the background in the TV pictures. Jeddah Street Street is located on the west coast of Saudi Arabia, in the big city of Jeddah on the shores of the Red Sea.
Among other things, Reuters reports that the warehouse of oil refiner Saudi Aramco was attacked by a Yuten huthi guerrilla group. The production facility is located approximately 10 kilometers from the F1 track. According to Reuters, Saudi state media had reported on a series of aircraft and rockets blamed on the Yemeni-backed Iranian-backed huthi movement.
Aramco, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is the world’s largest oil and energy company. It is headquartered in Dhahran, eastern Saudi Arabia.
– A huge cloud of black smoke has been seen rising in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where the oil giant Aramco has several oil plants, a witness said on Friday. Yemen’s huthi group said Friday they would make a statement on a major military operation “deep in Saudi Arabia,” Reuters reported.
Researcher at the Middle East Institute in the United States Charles Lister shared on Twitter (switching to another service) material from the events in Jeddah. The video shows a huge fire. The picture, in turn, shows a Mercedes car in F1 training, with a large cloud of smoke rising behind it.
Race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase replied that “we are glad it will not come from your car”.
The second exercises were to start at 7.15 pm. Before the rehearsals, all the teams were in some sort of meeting, after which no one commented on the incident in the Viaplay broadcast. However, Viaplay was told that the rehearsals will start at 7.15pm, 15 minutes behind schedule.
– We do not feel insecure here, and there is no panic, but it is surprising that no information is given. If you have to think at all that in the fear of a missile strike you don’t know if you can drive or not … yes, it’s usually “safety first”, and you should be completely safe, and not even discuss that, Viaplay wondered Mervi Kallio.
Viaplay reported that drivers have been banned from commenting on the matter. Also Haas team manager Günther Steiner or Alfa Romeo team manager Frederic Vasseur refused to comment on the situation to Viaplay.
Other drills are now underway, but according to Viaplay, drivers would not want to race in Saudi Arabia. They are concerned about the safety situation, especially outside the F1 track, in hotels and on the streets. When the rehearsals are over, the teams gather for a new meeting to discuss the situation.
Oil company Aramco is the main sponsor of Aston Martin’s F1 team and a major sponsor of the F1 series. Already last weekend, there was a fire at Aramco’s premises in Jeddah when huthi rebels fired a missile strike. At the time, Saudi Air Defense managed to repel the attack, but it still caused a fire.