Jeddah’s newly-bui🍬lt 6.174km street circuit will play host to the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this weekend as the 2021 F1 title battle enters its closing stages, with Max Verstappen leading Lewis Hamilton by eight points. 

Billed as the ‘fastest street track’ on the F1 cal♒endar, the♕ high-speed Saudi layout has already been tipped to favour Mercedes’ car. 

Hamilton is set to get his more powerful Brazil engine back for the Jeddah event after the seven-time world champion ran his older power unit on his way to💦 making it back-to-back winꦇs with victory in Qatar. 

“It’s another unknown, and we’ve seen prett🔜y big swings of performance over the recent races,” said Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.

“If we looꦡk at the track in Saudi, I think it should suit us. For Lewis, we have got the more powerful engine to go in the car, so that’s going to give him a useful boost.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner al🌠so believes Mercedes could have the edge in Saudi Arabia but has predicted a close conclusion🅠 to the championship fight. 

“I think it’s going to b🍸e tight,” Horner said. “The next track arguably should favour Mercedes, and Abu Dhabi, with the modifications made there, who knows?

“It’s been incredibly tight so we go into those races eight points in the lead in the drivers championship๊, we’ve reduced the championship lead i🌌n the constructors to five points. So both are fully in play

“That’s fantastic, because we’re now at the climax of this of this w🦋orld championship.”

Despite being considered the pre-event favourites by many, Shov♍lin pointed towards Mercedes’ defeat to Red Bull in the United States as a prime example of how nothing can ෴be taken for granted during such a competitive season. 

“The track should suit the car but then we would have probably said that in Austin,” Shovlin exꦯplained. 

“We felt that we s𒊎hould be able to put together a decent set-up and take the fight toও Red Bull and they had a bit of an edge there, so we’re always cautious to go to a race thinking that it’s all going to go our way.

“What we do know, though, are the things that we’ve got to get right on the set-up, what we need to get right🃏 on the tyres and how they’re working, and that’s what we’re going to be busy doing, making sure we’ve taken every opportunity to arrive there in good shape. 

“With a ne💯w circuit arriving in good shape is such a good thing, for the learning curve if you’ve got a good car to start with you can just improve it from there.”