A brand new digital render of the next track in Saudi Arabia has been revealed. While it looks good on paper, there are some elements that look like they were taken straight out of Mario Kart. But while the plans for the Qiddiya Circuit seem unreasonable, they might very well happen.
Qiddiya and Jeddah
Let’s take a few steps back. In 2019, it was announced that Saudi Arabia would be added to the F1 calendar. The race was supposed to take place at a brand new, custom built, track in the district of Qiddiya near the capital Riyadh. Qiddiya is a massive project by the Saudi government aimed at modernizing the country (and its revenue streams) and make it seem more appealing to Western people. It’s supposed to become a hub for arts, culture, gaming, e-sports, entertainment, recreation, innovation and sports. Of course, all of that is just part of a plan to disguise its abysmal human rights record, but they’d rather have that we don’t focus too much on that.
The plan was to debut the circuit at Qiddiya during the inaugural Grand Prix in 2021. It quickly became clear however that that was not going to be possible. So they drafted in the infamous Herman Tilke, designer of the Sochi Autodrom, the Las Vegas Strip Circuit and the Valencia Street Circuit. Tilke was hired to design a temporary track at Jeddah, which would serve as a placeholder until the Qiddiya circuit was done, which is currently projected to be 2027.
Now, I have never been a fan of the current track at Jeddah. It’s too fast, it’s too furious, and it’s way too freaking dangerous. The fact that we’ve never seen an actual serious crash with significant injuries is a real testament to the skills of the drivers and the safety of the current F1 cars. The track is a concrete mousetrap with little to no run-off zones and almost no tyre walls. It is also one of the fastest tracks on the F1 calendar with an average speed of 250 km/h. The only track with a higher average speed than Jeddah is Monza, but at least they have proper run-off zones there. With grass instead of concrete.
So when I saw that Qiddiya had released some renders of its new circuit, I was very excited to see what they had come up with. Because the sooner we get out of Jeddah, the better.
But Qiddiya might have actually gone a few steps further than Jeddah.
The Jeddah Corniche Circuit, where the Saudi GP currently takes place.
The Qiddiya F1 track
In terms of general layout, the track actually looks pretty good. There’s interesting corners, nice variation, plenty of run-off and lots of opportunities for overtaking. In other words: everything that Jeddah isn’t. Sure, the track layout looks a little bit messy, but it looks quite promising.
The problem though, is the first corner. They have elevated that one. They’ve elevated it by 108 meters to be precise. And since the ground isn’t 108 meters higher in that place, they have instead built scaffolding to get it that high up. Meaning that this corner is floating more than 100 meters above the ground.
If I hadn’t seen the images myself, I would think this was the description for the next track in Mario Kart. The infamous Rainbow Road in those games has a layout with less risks than that. I have to imagine that the final track will actually have plenty of safety measures to make sure everyone stays on track, but as we have seen time and time again in racing: you can’t prevent everything. Zhou Guanyu got thrown over the barriers at Silverstone in 2022. F3 driver Sophia Floersch got thrown over the fence in the Macau Grand Prix in 2018. There’s even a section of the Nurburgring nicknamed “Airfield” because of how often cars become airborne there. If any of that happens at this corner, with a drop off of 100 meters… Well, let’s just say that the halo will not be enough to save the driver this time.
The proposed first corner at the Qiddiya circuit.
It should be said that this is just a digital render at the moment, there’s no guarantee this will actually happen in the final track. But it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing Saudi Arabia has planned. After all, the Qiddiya racetrack is part of the same innovation project as The Line, a planned vertical city of a staggering 170 kilometers long while only being 200 meters wide. The same project also includes plans for an upside down skyscraper that you access via an underwater platform and a plan for, and I quote: “a floating industrial complex in the shape of an octagon”. But while all of this might sound like its designer has seen too many sci-fi movies, remember: these are the same people that already constructed a massive golf course and a ski resort in the middle of the desert. A racetrack corner that hovers 100 meters above the ground suddenly doesn’t sound that unlikely anymore.