However, FIA Race Director Michael Masi assumes that only “fine-tuning” is required before the next event on the track in March.
The drivers mainly had reservations about the lack of visibility of potential problems in the many sweeping corners. Some wondered why the track design didn’t just include more straights.
GPDA Director George Russell argued that the fast corners created “unnecessary risks” but were not a challenge, and others repeated his thoughts.
“I don’t know what the building constraints are because there has to be a reason the straights spin like that,” said Esteban Ocon.
“It’s in full swing for us so it doesn’t make a difference. It just makes it blind and we can’t see if a car is a problem up front or whatever. So it could be a massive accident.”
Ocon said he liked the first part of the track but added, “All those straights after that that aren’t straight I think we should basically be doing them straight.
“It wouldn’t make a difference when overtaking, it wouldn’t make a difference in the layout of the track itself because the main corners remain, but it would certainly add a lot to the safety aspect.
“We would have less to worry about the car with the slow flag. Every lap I drove in practice was a slow flag, so I didn’t know what I was getting at.”
Lando Norris also asked why the track had to be so fast and called it “pointless” to take risks at high speeds with the walls in close proximity.
“In my opinion, for a street circuit it doesn’t have to be like a street circuit at this speed,” said the McLaren driver.
“I think the F1 cars that we have, the speeds that we are driving today, don’t have to be quite like that.
Lando Norris, McLaren MCL35M, Esteban Ocon, Alpine A521, and Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT02, and Daniel Ricciardo, McLaren MCL35M
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“You can have the effect of a street circuit and so on, but you have to recognize that if we are driving 250/300 km / h and there is a wall from here to there, in my opinion it is a bit pointless” to risk something like that.
“That’s not necessary. The slow speed and turns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I think there are no problems with that. It’s just a few of those faster turns that I think could possibly be changed a bit.”
The FIA always reviews the tracks after the race weekends, but Masi doesn’t expect any major changes.
“I think here in Saudi Arabia they did an excellent job putting this amazing facility together in such a short amount of time, which pays tribute to everyone involved,” he said.
“There is some fine-tuning that will be happening across the board. There have been some teething troubles as this is a brand new event, a brand new facility in general.
“There will be some fine-tuning, but nothing essential that I have in mind here and now.”
The team bosses recognized their drivers’ concerns but stopped criticizing the venue.
“When I ran in Baku for the first time, I was working for the FIA,” said Marcin Budkowski from Alpine. “And I went there on a Wednesday and I went to Charlie [Whiting’s] Office and I said, ‘Are you sure about that, Charlie? You moderated that ‘.
“I had a bit of the same feeling on Thursday night. I feel like it’s okay, there are a couple of corners that are a bit tricky, but you can see that in 2022/23.
“You can talk to the driver about it after the weekend, you don’t really ask the driver whether he feels safe before the race weekend, that’s not really the best. It’s certainly a challenging track.”
“If you listen to the drivers when they drive the fast laps here, it becomes clear that there is also a certain risk associated with the narrow walls and the route,” says Andreas Seidl from McLaren.
“I still think it’s a manageable risk to be honest. Of course we will all talk differently about it, as Lando said, when a big accident happens.
“But I think in the end what we saw this weekend was well managed by the teams, the drivers and the FIA.”
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