2025 F1 Saudi Arabian GP: Preview and Predictions

The 2025 F1 Saudi Arabian GP will be the fifth race of the season, and it comes at a time when things are starting to heat up at the front of the field. The top 4 drivers in the championship are separated by just 14 points after four races.

Lando Norris leads the charts, but he is being closely pursued by Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, and George Russell. The season began with a McLaren win, and as has been the theme, the Woking-based squad has had the edge over the chasing pack.

The 5th race of the season is in Jeddah in what will be the fifth edition of the F1 Saudi Arabian GP. The race was first introduced in 2021 and produced a couple of classics in the first two seasons. This time around, though, we're racing at the track in somewhat hotter conditions in April, and that could play a role as well. With that being said, what can we expect from the race this weekend? Let's take a look.

2025 F1 Saudi Arabian GP: Preview

Key Storylines

#1 The softer tires

Pirelli appears to have heeded the suggestions of the fans who have been asking for a softer compound to be allocated for the car. The first few races have shown that overtaking has become worse, and hence, the only variable F1 can play with is the tires.

The issue, however, remains that the track surface of the F1 Saudi Arabian GP is just too smooth, and when that is the case, tire degradation would be low.

We saw last season already that the tires would just continue to be in the window and hammer lap time after lap time without showing any level of degradation.

One would hope that the softer compounds help, but we'll have to wait and see if that is the case.

#2 The title battle

The title battle is slowly but steadily intensifying at the front of the grid. Lando Norris has led the championship since the first race of the season, but the chasing pack has certainly closed up. With the top 4 drivers being separated by just 14 points, it just shows how close things are.

More importantly, McLaren might have the fastest car this season, but the gap is marginal, and drivers are being made to pay whenever they make mistakes.

The F1 Saudi Arabian GP could potentially be the race where we see a change in the lead in the standings, and that certainly would spice things up for everyone.

#3 The Red Bull turmoil

Red Bull had an emergency meeting, by the looks of it, after the race in Bahrain, where Max Verstappen finished in P6. If the strategy and everything had worked perfectly, we might have been looking at a better result, but by the looks of it, that didn't happen, and we had Helmut Marko admitting that Max Verstappen's future with the team is certainly not a done deal.

The F1 Saudi Arabian GP could work for the squad, as the car does have brilliant straight-line speed, but we'll have to wait and see where the team stands in the grand scheme of things this weekend.

Form Guide

In form

When the season began in Australia and Oscar Piastri beached his car while fighting for the win, one would have thought that this was going to be the theme of the championship. As it turns out, that's not the case. He's won 2 of the last three races, and dare we say, the driver looks to have everything under control in a manner that his teammate doesn't.

This weekend, Oscar Piastri goes to the F1 Saudi Arabian GP, a track where he's had the edge on teammate Lando Norris in the last two years. Surely we're looking at a change at the top of the standings, then. Are we?

Out of form

Lewis Hamilton cut a sorry figure after qualifying in Bahrain. So much so that it led to quite a few pundits drawing comparisons with his 2024 stint at Mercedes. This is just race 5 for the British driver at Ferrari, and maybe we shouldn't be expecting this much this early from him anyway. But the overall demeanor was not the best.

Next up, the F1 Saudi Arabian GP has not necessarily been Lewis Hamilton's best track anyway, so it would be interesting to see how he approaches it.

Driver in the spotlight

For all the negative reasons, it's going to be Lando Norris. If there are people in the F1 paddock who feel the McLaren driver is his own worst enemy, then they're not wrong.

The driver has performance in the bank, but his overtly self-critical nature is starting to become a major issue, and it could hurt him in the championship battle as well.

2025 F1 Saudi Arabian GP: Predictions

Who wins the race?

We're just going with the form guide here, the softer tire allocation only means that it would further play into the hands of McLaren. Out of the duo, Jeddah is one track where Lando Norris has struggled anyway, and hence it should give confidence to Oscar Piastri in a direct battle. We're backing the Australian to win the race and take over the lead of the championship.

Biggest surprise of the weekend? (Team)

The fast sections in the first sector of the track are where a car like a Racing Bulls could truly excel. In China, the car was a complete package in the second sector, and that's where it made most of the ground. In the F1 Saudi Arabian GP, we might see the team once again jump straight to the front of the line in the midfield pecking order.

Biggest surprise of the weekend? (Driver)

If there is anyone who has closely followed Oliver Bearman's junior career. There are a couple of tracks where he has been just supreme. One of them is in Jeddah. Even in his disappointing second F2 season, Bearman was in pole position at the track, and it wouldn't come as a surprise if he does something special this time around as well.

Biggest disappointment of the weekend? (Team)

Ferrari is expected to bring a new front wing to the F1 Saudi Arabian GP, but given how the team appears to be conducting itself and the kind of energy the squad has had this season, it's hard to expect much. The car was easily the second fastest at this track last season, but with how the team has gone about chopping and changing things, we don't even know what works and what doesn't on this car.

The enigmatic nature of the car is going to hurt the team as we predict another disappointing weekend for the squad.

Biggest disappointment of the weekend? (Driver)

As we mentioned earlier, the F1 Saudi Arabian GP has not necessarily been one of the better races for Lewis Hamilton. The driver has struggled at the layout, and this time around, he's coming into a weekend a bit low on confidence.

There will be upgrades on the car for sure, but it looks unlikely at this stage that Lewis Hamilton ends up having a strong weekend in Jeddah.