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Ready to Race: Nick Yelloly's Jeddah circuit sim insight

Ahead of the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team's simulator driver Nick Yelloly gives his lowdown in the brand-new Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Yet to have a single lap completed by a Formula One car, this is the inside line on what to expect in a weekend of learning for the F1 field.

I've enjoyed driving the Jeddah circuit in the team simulator, because of the trickiness of the first sector and having to get the flow right.

I think it will be quite easy to make mistakes, particularly if the grip is as low as some people are suggesting. People could clip the barriers at the high-speed section on exit, a bit like they can in Montréal.

As a street circuit, it feels quite narrow in Jeddah, so going side-by-side in the DRS zones will be difficult, especially on the off-line, dirty sections of the track.

A lot of people looking at the track map will think it has a lot of corners, but a lot of them will be flat-out, even with three DRS zones.

For example, in the middle sector, there are three or four corners that look like turns and have numbers, but with DRS and the lowest grip level that we tried in the simulator, we were flat-out.

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I think overtaking will likely happen at the third DRS zone, Turn 27 into Turn One, because it's quite open, and Turn One requires hard braking. I think we were down in third gear at the first and last corner.

I found Sector One to be the most difficult to get into the rhythm when I was learning the circuit. I wouldn't say it's like Silverstone’s Maggotts and Becketts, but it's similar in the sense that if you mess up one entry, it can harm your run through the rest of the sequence. You've got to be pinpoint-accurate the whole way through to complete a good sector.

You've got Turns One and Two, and then Three is a little kink, which is easily flat. At Turn Four, you've got braking to the left, and Turn Five is a long right, where you lift a little bit. At Turns Six and Seven, we were just about flat, and then it was another lift into the right-hander of Turn Eight.

Then you have to lift a little bit to prepare for the right-hander, which is near a wall, to make sure you get the run through the fast left. Then it's all flat-out after that until Turn 13, the big left-hander.

I was between fourth or fifth gear there, depending on the grip. There were quite a few different lines, and, on the simulator, it appeared slightly banked, which allows different lines, in qualifying or race trim.

Thereafter, you've got a very fast fifth-gear chicane. You move left, and then it's a right/left onto the back straight, and that's Turns 16/17. That leads on to the next straight with DRS, which is Turns 19-21, but it's actually straight.

Then you have a very fast left-hander close to the wall on both sides, which will be a good spectacle. You'll need to be brave in an F1 car going through there! After that, you're flat out again until the last corner.

In the simulator, Turn 27 seemed quite wide with a narrowing exit onto the pit straight. If you can force someone to defend, then I think you'll get a cutback and can pass them with DRS into Turn One or go for a late braking move.

If I must compare it to any other circuit, it's like Baku's last sector, but there's more of it. You're not going to be going lower than fourth gear most of the time. In an F1 car, you're already at high speed in fourth!

It'll be interesting to see whether the circuit provides good racing. With three DRS zones, hopefully, it can open the circuit up, even though sector two looks very hard to make a move in.