The F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Wants to Be Racing’s Biggest Spectacle

The Australian Oscar Piastri won the F1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday in a race that was short on drama—Piastri led after the pit stops and never looked back—but high on spectacle, which is sometimes the case in this part of the world that is still trying to prove its bona fides when it comes to hosting major sporting events. Or at least provide the biggest splash when doing so.

That spectacle included military flyovers, concerts with expensive talent like Jennifer Lopez and Usher, and seemingly more fireworks than the Fourth of July. The race itself is a phantasmagoria of lights and more fire, crafted to take advantage of the day-to-day rhythms of Saudi Arabia, where the day doesn’t quite start until the sun goes down and the heat dissipates. The night race is also made for television, like almost every newer race on the Formula 1 calendar, including Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi.

Saudi Arabia reportedly paid tens of millions of dollars to host the race, the first edition of which was held in December 2021 during the pandemic. The race is part of a larger Saudi push into attention-grabbing sporting events, including LIV Golf, which poached several players from the PGA Tour; championship boxing bouts, including Tyson Fury vs. Oleksander Usyk; and big investments in soccer, attracting players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar to the country’s professional league.

This is all, in many ways, a prelude to the World Cup, which Saudi Arabia is hosting in 2034. It is the third Asian country to do so, following South Korea and Japan in 2002 and Qatar in 2022. The country will build 11 new stadiums to host the most-watched soccer tournament in the world. Critics say all of these big investments are merely marketing for a country accused of human rights abuses; Formula 1, for its part, has said in response that it thinks taking its sport to new countries makes it a “positive force everywhere it races, including economic, social, and cultural benefits.”

On the evidence of this year’s race, it’s hard to see that the grand prix in Saudi Arabia isn’t here to stay, with a new track also being built outside of Riyadh, the capital. That track is intended to host future versions of the event. In the meantime, the Jeddah course is a street track built every year for the race along the Red Sea, along with the grandstands, fan zone, and assorted other temporary structures. The circuit was designed in conjunction with Formula 1, and its primary selling point is how fast it is. Formula 1 says that the average speed is around 155 mph, which is a blistering pace and second only to Monza on the F1 calendar, and the fastest street race in Formula 1 ever.

The race is also just one part of the festivities, along with an associated concert series called MDLBEAST that, last year, featured A$AP Rocky, Alicia Keys, and Pharrell. This year’s lineup included Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Major Lazer, and Peggy Gou, along with a slate of regional artists that attracted the most fervor from the crowd at a 50,000-capacity outdoor venue near the race track. Each artist turned in professional performances on a stage surrounded by enormous screens and pyrotechnic displays that mirrored the presentation of the race itself. The effect was extending the F1 party from the daytime to well past midnight, even on Sunday, the first day of the work week in the country.

An awkward sequence during the Usher show, in which the R&B star gave a woman in the crowd a cherry necklace, highlighted how new many in the crowd were to seeing pop stars on stage, and how new some pop stars are to the country’s social norms. It’s all new for tourists, too, as the country began issuing non-religious tourist visas for the first time in its history less than six years ago, as part of its push to open up that was concurrent with its push into major sporting events.

Tourism has since accelerated to such a degree that there is little need for cash, as credit cards are widely accepted, and hotels catering to foreign tourists keep rising. Those hotels have hospitality standards on par with many of the finest in the world, but no alcohol is served, with focus instead diverted to food, coffee, and experiences.

The idea is in part to diversify the country’s economy, though for F1 it’s just another stop on a calendar that, this year, has 24 races across the world. The drivers and teams will be in Miami for the grand prix there the first weekend of May, and then Emilia Romagna and Monaco after that. In Saudi Arabia, the drivers did their part in supplying some thrills while their focus remained less on the spectacle and more on the competition and the ongoing drama of a Formula 1 season that has its ups and downs during a year’s tour trot the globe.

After Sunday’s race, Max Verstappen got a question from a reporter about why he seemed in a bad mood, despite finishing second, being third in the championship standings, and seemingly having a car fast enough to contend for another championship. Verstappen was perhaps a little salty about a five-second penalty that probably cost him victory, perhaps unhappy with his team, perhaps still mad about the FIA’s stance on cursing, or perhaps just wanting to get out of town and move on.

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“I prefer not to talk a lot because sometimes your words can be twisted or people interpret it in a different way,” Verstappen said. “It’s honestly better not to say too much.”

Click here for more photos of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.