The Jeddah Corniche Circuit, located in the coastal Cornice area and overlooking the Red Sea, joined the Formula 1 calendar as the penultimate round of the 2021 F1 season. It was designed by the Tilke company, more specifically by Carston Tilke, together with Formula 1’s own Motorsports team led by Ross Brawn, who used Google Earth to scout out the area available to them and discuss potential layouts.

Photo via @jeddah_corniche on Instagram

Jeddah Corniche will be the longest street circuit on the 2023 calendar, and the second-longest in general, with only Spa-Francorchamps narrowly beating it. The circuit was described as “the fastest street circuit on the calendar” in March 2021, as the Autodromo Nazionale Monza would be the only circuit to have faster topspeeds. Together with Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, and Las Vegas, it will be one of 5 races this year that will take place under flood lights.

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Track distance: 6.174 km / 3.837 miles
• DRS zones: 3
• Corners: 27
• Elevation: n/a
• Laps: 50
• Race lap record: 1:30.734 Lewis Hamilton (2021)
• Direction: anti-clockwise
• Night race

Photo via @F1 on Twitter

According to F1.com, the Jeddah configuration for this year is as follows:

PREVIOUS TYRE COMPOUNDS

• Selected compounds in 2021: C4 (soft) C3 (medium) C2 (hard)
• Selected compounds in 2022: C4 (soft) C3 (medium) C2 (hard)

The Jeddah Corniche Circuit joined the calendar as the penultimate round of the 2021 season. During both the 2022 and 2023 season it was the 2nd round of the season, forming a double header with Bahrain in 2022. The track is set to potentially host the opening round of at least a few seasons the coming years, taking the fact Ramadan will take place around the same time as the Grand Prix into account.

For the 2023 season, some changes to the track were made. The changes include tweaks to the kerbs and rumble lines, reprofiling at Turn 22 and Turn 23, and shifting of some of the walls, most specifically in Turns 14 and 20, to improve visibility. These changes were made to improve the safety of drivers on track, and to deliver more exciting racing.

Photo via @alfaromeostake on Instagram

As the circuit is rather new, both Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are the most successful drivers at the track, with 1 win each. This means that both Mercedes and Red Bull have collected 1 victory each so far.

PREVIOUS WINNERS

• 2022 Max Verstappen
• 2021 Lewis Hamilton