McLaren’s Oscar Piastri took victory in the 2025 Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.
The Aussie held his nerve at lights out as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen earned a time penalty for going off the circuit, earning a penalty that would nail him into a second-place result.
A sterling effort by Charles Leclerc saw the Ferrari driver grab his first podium of the campaign.
Piastri’s third win of the season makes him the first Australian to lead the Drivers’ standings since 2010.
16 of the 20 runners were poised to start on the Medium tyres, with Lando Norris, starting 10th after his Q3 qualifying crash, starting on Hards.
Isack Hadjar (14th), Lance Stroll (16th) and Nico Hulkenberg (18th) also started on the Hard Pirelli rubber.
Drama on Lap 1
Verstappen lined up on pole ahead of 50 laps of action, thanks to his sensational pole position in qualifying, but could he hold front row fellow Piastri at bay at lights out?
Just about, but it could have been considered contentious as the leading duo went side-by-side into Turn 1 with Verstappen escaping to the run off and holding onto first.
There was chaos further behind as Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly came together at Turn 4, with the latter coming off worse for wear
The Safety Car was called almost immediately with Gasly stopped, the rear-end of his Alpine smashed as Tsunoda continued, but not for long.
The Japanese driver pitted, and the team held him in for some time to check the status of his car before calling it a day.
Alpine’s Jack Doohan, Haas’ Esteban Ocon and Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto all chose to pit for Hard tyres, no doubt a tactic to see whether 49 laps could be run without a further stop.
But what of the situation at the front of the pack?
The stewards elected to investigate, with Piastri adamant over team radio that Turn 1 was his corner.
Verstappen felt Piastri had no intention of making the corner – the feeling was mutual.
As that was being deliberated, the field circulated behind the Safety Car: Verstappen leading, Piastri second, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell, Leclerc, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz and Norris, who’d risen two places at the start thanks to the Lap 1 crash.
Lap 3 saw the Safety Car period come to an end, and Verstappen prepared to lead the field back to green, weaving down the back straight, before bolting out of the final corner.
Any advantage he’d get from that was meaningless, as the stewards decided to award him a five-second time penalty.
Could the Dutchman absorb that punishment and build a big enough gap?
“Well, that is F***ing lovely,” Verstappen fumed over the radio, with his Race Engineer telling him to get on with the task at hand.
That task included defending Piastri, who had drawn within DRS range by Lap 6.
Russell was cast adrift of Piastri, but enjoyed enough of a margin over those behind to be comfortable.
Sainz, however, wasn’t so lucky, as Norris passed him into Turn 1 on Lap 7, a classic DRS manoeuvre.
As the opening laps ticked on, Verstappen was able to shake Piastri loose and get out of the DRS, albeit marginally.
That would be no bother for Piastri, who could patiently wait for pit-stop action to assume the lead when Verstappen would be forced to serve his five seconds.
That didn’t stop the racey Australian coming back to under a second of Verstappen’s rear wing by Lap 10.
The pair flirted in and out of DRS range from this point onwards.
Meanwhile, Norris, having driven up to the back of Hamilton, made a move to take sixth into the final corner on Lap 12, only for the Ferrari man to draft back past with DRS into Turn 1 to start Lap 13.
The same happened a lap later. Would lightning strike three times?
No. With instruction from Race Engineer Will Joseph, Norris was patient the third time around and waited until the start of Lap 15 down the start/finish straight to make his move into sixth.
But two laps were wasted.
Meanwhile, Verstappen, out in front, had created a five-plus-second buffer to third-place man Russell.
The leaders pit
Having fallen 2.7s back from Verstappen, McLaren made the call to pit Piastri on Lap 20 to bolt on the Hard tyres, and Antonelli did the same from fifth.
The pit stop worked as desired for McLaren, as Piastri emerged in clear air, two seconds behind Hamilton.
Russell pitted a lap later, emerging between the two Williams in seventh, as Verstappen continued to circulate, encouraged to push and push hard.
Piastri, meanwhile, made a ridiculous move around the outside of Hamilton as up ahead, Verstappen pitted and served his penalty.
The penalty did its job, and the Dutchman emerged two seconds behind Hamilton and approximately three seconds ahead of Russell.
Piastri then had a Ferrari-shaped buffer in Verstappen’s way and a clear track in front of him as the net race leader.
Leclerc and Norris were the two true leaders at this point, going long on the opening stint.
Verstappen made his way around Hamilton at the end of Lap 23, and the Ferrari man darted into the pits to take his Hard tyres, returning to the action in eighth and 7.5s behind Antonelli.
Piastri was punching in a sequence of fastest laps during this phase of the race, lighting the timing screens purple at half-distance of the GP.
As the race crept up to Lap 30 of 50, Piastri enjoyed a 4.9s margin over Verstappen as Leclerc finally stopped, having put in a monster opening stint on the Medium tyres.
The Monegasque driver slotted back into the action in fifth, 3.6s behind Russell.
That left Norris out in front, yet to shed the Hards he started the race on, and 3.3s ahead of his team-mate.
At this stage, Norris was one of four drivers yet to pit, including Hadjar in seventh, Stroll in 11th and Hulkenberg in 12th.
In other words, the quartet that started on Hards.
This was good news for Williams, with Sainz and Alex Albon having successfully navigated Hulkenberg and Stroll to get into the points-paying positions.
Out in front, Piastri was told Norris was keen to extend his stint further, but the Aussie was starting to feel the effects of dirty air and wasn’t overtly pleased with that, keen to protect his 4.9s margin to Verstappen behind.
McLaren responded, calling Norris in on Lap 35, the plan to release him between Leclerc and Antonelli.
The plan worked, Norris emerged with five seconds to catch up to Leclerc, who was charging towards Russell, sniffing out a podium.
Tensions rise to close the podium positions
Piastri was free to lead from the front, with 16 laps remaining and a 4.5s margin over Verstappen.
Leclerc’s pace following his stop had seen him reel Russell in and on Lap 38, having worked hard to get into DRS range, he took third off of the Mercedes driver into Turn 1.
“Well done, Charles,” said his Race Engineer, Bryan Bozzi.
“Thank you, Bryan,” the Monegasque replied coolly.
The move was timely as Norris had brought his Medium tyres in and halved the deficit to Russell.
With 10 laps remaining, Norris cleared Russell, although race control had noted him for potentially crossing the white line on his earlier pit exit.
Would he be punished, could he catch Leclerc?
There wasn’t long left to find out.
Another intriguing story was playing out at the other end of the top-10.
The Williams duo had Hadjar for very close company, and eighth-place man Sainz was keeping team-mate Albon in his DRS to help him defend from the hard-charging Racing Bulls car in 10th.
As the call came in to clear Norris of any wrongdoing for his pit exit, he drew closer to Leclerc, the margin being 3s with seven laps remaining.
That gap was under 2s with five laps remaining, and it looked like Leclerc and Norris were set for a late race battle for third.
A nervy moment for Piastri as backmarkers blocked his path saw is lead to Verstappen cut by a second, but as Verstappen came across the same issue, the margin grew back to over 3.2s.
The true fight was going on behind them, as Leclerc’s gap to Norris was 1.5s with roughly two and a half laps remaining.
There was no such fight out in front as Piastri took the chequered flag and with it, the lead of the World Championship.
Verstappen took a bittersweet second as Leclerc held Norris at bay to take a well-deserved podium.
A distant fifth was Russell, leading Mercedes team-mate Antonelli home, with Hamilton finishing seventh in the second Ferrari.
Williams bagged its double-points finish with Sainz and Albon in eighth and ninth respectively, as Hadjar rounded out the top-10.
READ MORE – Oscar Piastri expecting equal McLaren treatment with upgrades in F1 2025
… Fernando Alonso is, no longer top-10 driver. Lewis Hamilton is, no longer a top-5 driver. First in class, our number 1 driver in the world, as of his writing, Oscar Piastri –