Oscar Piastri seized the lead of the Formula 1 drivers’ championship by winning the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The key flashpoint came at Turn 1 on lap one as a slow start for poleman Max Verstappen allowed Piastri to force his McLaren up the inside of the Red Bull.
Piastri and Verstappen went side-by-side into the first turn, with Piastri taking the apex and Verstappen going off the track and rejoining in the lead.
The stewards took a dim view of that and gave Verstappen a five-second time penalty. Verstappen tried to build a five-second cushion, but Piastri kept him at bay before pitting on lap 19 of 50.
Two laps later, Verstappen pitted, served his penalty and came out behind Piastri.
Verstappen didn’t have the pace on the hard tyres to close Piastri down, with the McLaren driver taking his third grand prix victory of the season to leapfrog team-mate Lando Norris in the points table - the first time he’s ever led the F1 drivers’ championship.
Tsunoda/Gasly clash
Yuki Tsunoda’s third race with Red Bull ended in disaster after an opening lap clash with Pierre Gasly’s Alpine.
The duo went side-by-side through Turn 5 and came together, with Gasly going into the barrier and out of the race, while Tsunoda made it back to the pits but Red Bull found terminal damage and retired him.
Tsunoda said he’d have approached that corner exactly the same if he could do it again, believing he “did as much as I could” to avoid the incident.
But he said he couldn’t fully blame Gasly, who himself called it just “racing” with unfortunate consequences.
Leclerc charges to podium
Charles Leclerc qualified his Ferrari fourth and ran in that position early in the race behind George Russell, with neither particularly troubling Verstappen and Piastri.
Leclerc switched from mediums to hards nine laps later than Russell, and allied with a rapid 2.0s pitstop, he used his fresher tyres to catch and pass Russell with relative ease for third place at Turn 1 with 12 laps to go.
Norris mounted a strong recovery from his qualifying crash. Tsunoda and Gasly’s crash bumped him up to eighth on the opening lap, which became seventh when he passed Carlos Sainz’s Williams on lap seven.
He had more trouble making a pass stick on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari, as he overtook Hamilton twice into the final corner, only to then lose the position into Turn 1 as Hamilton blasted back through with DRS - making full use of the DRS detection point being in the middle of the braking zone for the final corner.
Norris made the move stick at the third time of asking to move into sixth, then undercut Kimi Antonelli into fifth.
He’d started on the hard tyres so had fresh mediums for the final 16 laps, in which he cleared George Russell’s Mercedes for fourth and put mild pressure on Leclerc for the final spot on the podium.
Norris ultimately ended up one second short of third place, and his fourth place finish drops him to second in the points behind Piastri.
Russell and Antonelli took fifth and sixth for Mercedes, with Hamilton seventh in the second Ferrari.
Double points finish for Williams
Sainz and Alex Albon earned Williams’s first points in Jeddah in eighth and ninth, with Sainz giving Albon DRS at times to protect him from the Racing Bulls.
Rookie Isack Hadjar took the final point in 10th place, with team-mate Liam Lawson earning a 10-second penalty for passing Jack Doohan’s Alpine off the track. That dropped him to 12th behind Fernando Alonso.
There were no points for Aston Martin, Haas, Sauber or Alpine.
Saudi Arabian GP result
1) Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
2) Max Verstappen (Red Bull), +2.843s
3) Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), +8.104s
4) Lando Norris (McLaren), +9.196s
5) George Russell (Mercedes), +27.236s
6) Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), +34.688s
7) Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), +39.073s
8) Carlos Sainz (Williams), +1m04.630s
9) Alex Albon (Williams), +1m06.515s
10) Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls), +1m07.091s
11) Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), +1m15.917s
12) Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls), +1m18.451s (10-second penalty)
13) Ollie Bearman (Haas), +1m19.194s
14) Esteban Ocon (Haas), +1m39.723s
15) Nico Hulkenberg (Sauber), +1 lap
16) Lance Stroll (Sauber), +1 lap
17) Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber), +1 lap
18) Jack Doohan (Alpine), +1 lap
DNF) Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull)
DNF) Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
