After an eventful but also exciting race in the new Jeddah Corniche circuit, Andreas Seidl was asked about the event as a whole for the Formula 1 calendar.

“I think first of all, big congratulations to all the people here from Saudi Arabia to put up that track here, which was a very special track. Very exciting track.

“I guess we have seen again today a very entertaining race as well, as far as I could see what was ongoing at the front, so well done to the promoter here and yeah, overall, I think we’ve seen racing, an unbelievably exciting season this year which is great for Formula 1, for us as teams and for mainly the fans, I think that’s great.”

But it was not only excitement we saw today, as we were able to hear the communication not only from drivers and their teams but also between the teams and Michael Massi. Something that was not possible before.

“Before we didn’t hear that stuff, and I think that’s a big difference. To be honest, from my point of view it was never a thing to broadcast this communication because there’s also things going back and forward, we got in safety, etc. etc., which I don’t think that it should always be broadcasted, but it’s my opinion on it,” said Andreas about the conversations being public.

“I don’t think the communication principle has changed, I would say in terms of what’s going backwards and forwards it’s even more controlled than in the past because everyone knows it gets broadcasted.”

And of course with a new track, people expect incidents to happen even before they do. McLaren’s Lando Norris, after Saturday’s qualifying, even said that an accident was waiting to happen.

“It is clear that the characteristics this track has, which is in one degree very exciting, also when you listen to the drivers, when they drive the fast laps here, it is clear it was an amount of risks involved.”

“I still think it’s a race that is manageable, to be honest, of course like Lando said yesterday when that big accident happens, we all discuss it differently but I think ultimately what we have seen this weekend it was well managed I think by the teams, by the drivers by the FIA and we get away around the track this weekend. “

With accidents happening, there were a couple of red flags and handful of safety cars and virtual safety cars, and they all intervened with the team’s dynamics and plans. But they might be what is best for everyone at the moment.

“Obviously I didn’t like the first red flag after Lando pitted. But it’s difficult to judge for me if it was necessary or not because I don’t know exactly what state the area was, so it’s difficult to judge,” Andreas said after being asked if he think they were fair.

“The second red flag yeah I think there was a lot of debris, so I understood it as well and then the virtual safety cars whenever there’s debris on track you need to go safe because there’s metal parts laying around. If they hit a driver with this metal parts or they get thrown up into the air and hit a spectator or a driver, you can’t take that risk so from this point of view I think I was absolutely ok with what happened today.”