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‘Aiming For Another Podium’ - Toto’s Saudi Arabian GP Preview

15 April 2025
5 Min Read

From the middle of the desert to the shores of the Red Sea.

The final leg of F1’s first triple-header of 2025 sees the paddock make its away across the Middle East from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia.

Round five of the 2025 World Championship sees the team looking for another strong result to cap off a solid start to the campaign.

Toto’s thoughts on Jeddah are below:

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Signing Off from Sakhir

Before we pack our suitcases and head to the Corniche, there was a lot to unpack from an intense Bahrain weekend, and our result was in doubt up until the very final corners of the Grand Prix.

"Bahrain was an eventful race," said Toto.

"George battled through several failures on his car to take P2 along with his, and the team's, third podium of the season. It was a superb drive from him under significant pressure, aided by the calm troubleshooting input from the team.

"We are hard at work to understand what caused the issues we had in order to avoid a repeat in the future."

An Important Milestone

There was no statistic to mark or record to celebrate in Bahrain, but the weekend was a vital step in the development of Kimi as an F1 driver.

Toto said: "For Kimi, Bahrain was an important part of the learning curve. He showed through the weekend that he had the pace to challenge for the top five.

"He found himself out of position on the opening lap though and, as he fought back in the opening two stints, his tyres suffered.

"Switching to a different strategy, he was then unfortunate with the timing of the Safety Car and our choices didn't give him the chance to fight back to the points.

"It has been easy to forget that Kimi is in the very earliest stages of his F1 career given his performances so far. Bahrain will prove an important milestone in his continued development."

Eyes on Jeddah

One of the most iconic tracks on the calendar, Jeddah will keep the teams on their toes, providing a very different set of characteristics to get to grips with.

"Although we were encouraged by our performance in Bahrain, Jeddah poses a different challenge," said Toto.

"We go from a rear-limited track to one that is more front-limited, with several high and medium-speed sections. It would be foolish to try and predict the likely order, but we will be aiming to fight for the podium once again.

Doriane in the Desert

"Another driver aiming to do similar will be our F1 Academy racer, Doriane (Pin)," says Toto.

"It's round two of the championship and we will be supporting her trackside as she bids to increase her points lead."

Doriane got her season off to the perfect start with a win in Shanghai in March, off the back of a P4 in the reverse grid race.

The Iron Dames racer leads the standings by five points going to Saudi Arabia, the second of seven rounds on this year's calendar.

The French racer claimed two poles and a race win at last year's event in Jeddah, which was the first race since the series officially joined the F1 support bill at the start of 2024.

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