19/04/2025
NEWS STORY
Free Practice 3: Pierre P8 (1min 28.625secs); Jack P15 (1min 28.898secs)
Qualifying: Pierre P9 (1min 28.367secs); Jack P17 (1min 28.739secs)
Pierre Gasly: "On the whole, it is positive that we made it back-to-back Q3 appearances after last weekend in Bahrain. Today there were certainly a few things we could have done better, which we will learn from for next time as I am sure we could have been higher than ninth place. The whole team has done a great job and the package is good at the moment. We have put ourselves in a position to fight for points tomorrow, which, of course, is the target. We will need a clean race in a tight field. We know where and who our race is against with Carlos [Sainz] a few places ahead. That's our aim and I'm looking forward to it tomorrow night."
Jack Doohan: "It's not the end result we wanted in Qualifying, but, overall, I'm pleased with the steps we made today after a challenging Practice yesterday. We made good steps forward between Free Practice 3 to Qualifying. We were able to work through some things and find some improvements overnight and I immediately felt the positive impact in the first few laps of today where I was much more comfortable in the car compared to yesterday. The end result in Qualifying is not one we are happy with especially being so close to reaching Q2. We remain optimistic and we know overtaking opportunities are better here than other circuits and we will aim to take advantage of a few things like strategy with the ambition of progressing forwards to the points."
Dave Greenwood, Racing Director: "Wrapping up Qualifying in Jeddah with one car in Q3 for the second consecutive weekend is satisfying but there was potential for more today from that session to have Pierre starting higher up the grid. Qualifying here at this circuit tends to throw up certain challenges, particularly with traffic management or stoppages for red flags. Pierre stringed together some strong laps to progress through each session but every lap took a lot of hard work from the team and the driver to optimise performance. We pushed after the red flag in Q3 to get Pierre two timed laps with a pit-stop between, however Pierre aborted the scrubbed lap and that put us out of sync and we then needed to hold in the box which did not help the tyre preparation. The final lap in Q3 did not see any progression from Q2 which is extremely disappointing as the pace was there today in the car. On Jack's side, the car felt much more connected for him this morning in Practice and again he felt more comfortable in the car in Qualifying, which showed being closer to Pierre at the start of the Q1 session. With where we're starting there's a strong chance to move forwards and the aim is for points again tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Jeddah here.