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Ellie Hardings gets in touch:
I’d say this is an important session for Norris after a difficult Bahrain qualifying last week, particularly for his confidence for the championship over his teammate Piastri, especially when you consider their past performance at this track. Do you think one of the McLarens will get pole?
Oof, it’s so hard to call. Piastri seems to be the man of the moment but maybe Norris has a bit of a mental edge after his time in third practice. Either way, it’s hard to look past a McLaren on pole tomorrow.
George Russell has joined the discussion regarding Verstappen’s future and a possible move to Mercedes. It’s a tantalising prospect, even the British driver admitted when speaking to PA this week:
Why wouldn’t they want to sign Max? It’s totally understandable. He’s the best at the moment. He’s a four-time world champion. That’s not anything against me or Kimi [Antonelli]. There’s two drivers for every team and he is one person. So that doesn’t concern me one bit because the performance is my currency and right now I think I am performing as good as anyone on this grid.
The main talking point in the buildup to this weekend has been the future of Max Verstappen, who was public in his criticism of his car after a disappointing sixth-placed finish in Bahrain. Could he be on the move?
“I am happy [at Red Bull], I’m just not very happy with our car,” he said this week. “But that goes for everyone, we all want to be better, there’s no secret about that. That’s what we’re trying to improve.”
Lewis Hamilton is slowing starting to get to grips with his new car having made the switch from Mercedes to Ferrari in the off-season. His fifth-placed finish in Bahrain was his highest of 2025 so far. Giles Richards has more on his progression ahead of Saudi Arabia:
Hamilton’s relationship with his new family has been under intense examination, a process not helped by the Ferrari playing catch-up at the same time Hamilton is learning his way around the new machinery.
Let’s take a look at how third practice finished up this afternoon.
There was very little to separate the two McLarens, with Lando Norris fastest by two hundredths of a second from Oscar Piastri.
Max Verstappen remains a little off the pace in his Red Bull, while Lewis Hamilton didn’t break the top 10 and sat seven places behind his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc. Williams performed the best of the mid-field runners.
Preamble
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of qualifying for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
All four races in 2025 have so far been won by the driver that qualified fastest, with Oscar Piastri guiding his McLaren to victory from pole in Bahrain last weekend having been 0.168 seconds quicker than George Russell’s Mercedes in Q3.
Q1 at Jeddah’s Corniche Circuit on the banks of the Red Sea gets under way under the lights at 6pm (BST). In the meantime, feel free to email me with all manner of queries, comments or predictions.
