TOTO TALKS - 2021 SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX

The venue for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is a temporary street circuit located on the Corniche - a waterfront area in Jeddah, next to the Red Sea. The waterfront location presents similar challenges to Abu Dhabi, blowing sand onto the track and experiencing wind shifts from daytime to the evening. The Jeddah Corniche Circuit has the most corners of any track on the F1 calendar, with 27, 16 left-handers and 11 right-handers.

The street track nature of Jeddah means there is a higher risk of a Safety Car, with incidents taking longer to clear and the fast corners potentially causing bigger accidents. A long track combined with being a street circuit also means more potential for mistakes to be made.

Jeddah has billed its track as the 'fastest street circuit in the world' with expected average speeds of around 250 km/h. Baku isn't too far off, but Jeddah's average speed is helped by several of its corners being taken flat-out or in DRS zones.

Drivers will hit over 310 km/h three times on the long straights and with the three DRS zones, we're anticipating Jeddah to rival Spa and Monza for the highest percentage of time spent at full throttle.

"Two races to go, and two Championships still to be decided. We are all excited to still be in the fight at this stage in the season, it's a privilege and a testament to our resilience when we see where we stood in the early summer. Both titles are wide open, and our mission is clear."

"Last time out we saw a faultless drive by Lewis in Qatar, commanding the race from start to finish, and a strong recovery for Valtteri before the unfortunate puncture took him out of contention."

"The car has been performing well recently and is probably in the best place it has been all season, with the drivers confident to push it to the limit. That's encouraging for the final races and gives us strong momentum to take forward."

"Jeddah is another completely new challenge, an all-new track to get to grips with and a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to ensure we hit the ground running on Friday, because getting as much information as we can during those initial sessions will be vital."

"It's a fast street circuit with long flat-out sections and several high-speed corners, lined by barriers meaning it'll be high risk and reward. We're more motivated than ever and we expect to be in the hunt, so we are all looking forward to the debut grand prix in Saudi Arabia."

"Just a few days ago we lost Sir Frank Williams. He will be in all our thoughts this weekend and we'll try our best to deliver a performance that's worthy of his racing spirit."