JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Oscar Piastri moved into the lead of the drivers’ championship for the first time in his career after securing his third victory of the season at Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The McLaren driver beat Max Verstappen to the race win after the reigning champion was penalised five seconds for leaving the track and gaining an advantage while fighting with Piastri in the opening corner of the race.
Piastri’s teammate Lando Norris, who crashed in qualifying on Saturday and started the race in tenth position, could only manage fourth place at the finish, meaning he dropped another 13 points to Piastri and is now 10 points adrift of the Australian in the standings.
Piastri said: “I am looking for a couch!” referring to the heat. “It was a tough race and I am very happy to have won. I made my case into Turn 1 and that was enough. The clean air was nice after the pit stops, we did what we needed to do right.
“We still need more but it was a great race and weekend, ” he added.
Piastri’s victory hinged on the first corner, with the McLaren driver getting a better start than Verstappen, who started on pole position, to get his nose ahead of the Red Bull at the apex of Turn 1.
Verstappen found himself on the inside of Turn 2, but as he attempted to repass the McLaren he was left with nowhere to go and had to cut the corner on the inside to avoid a collision.
Although Verstappen retained the lead, the stewards deemed that he had left the track and gained an advantage, and therefore penalised him five seconds at his first pit stop.
The penalty was enough for Piastri to emerge three seconds clear of Verstappen when both cars had made their one and only pit stop of the race. The new championship leader monitored the gap for the remainder of the race and never looked under threat from Verstappen after passing him in the pit stops.
The win, which was the fifth of Piastri’s career, moves him ten points clear of Norris in the standings and 12 points clear of Verstappen in third place.
Norris, meanwhile, made good progress at the start of the race, helped in part by a first-lap collision between Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, who both started ahead of him.
He initially struggled to pass Lewis Hamilton for sixth place after the Ferrari driver pulled the same move for two consecutive laps by letting Norris by at the final corner, only to repass him at Turn 1.
Norris learned his lesson and completed a cleaner pass on Andrea Kimi Antonelli for fifth before making use of an alternative strategy to put him on fresher tyres to pass George Russell for fourth with 10 laps remaining.
He closed to just over one second of Charles Leclerc for third place at the finish, but the Ferrari driver held him off after a remarkable race of his own from fourth place on the grid.
Leclerc said afterwards: “I was very happy with the race, we maximised everything. It was intense inside the car, I did not expect to finish on the podium, it was really good.
“We need to keep pushing. Hopefully upgrades are coming soon to improve the car,” he added.
Russell took fifth for Mercedes ahead of teammate Antonelli in sixth, Hamilton’s Ferrari in seventh and the two Williams drivers, Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon, in eighth and ninth.
Isack Hadjar took the final point on offer for Racing Bulls.
