Oscar Piastri clinched his third win of the 2025 Formula 1 season at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, moving into the championship lead for the first time. The McLaren driver capitalized on a five-second penalty given to Max Verstappen, who had illegally retained the lead at Turn One by running off-track. Although Verstappen had enough pace to hold on to second place, Piastri took control of the race and never looked back.
The incident that decided the race came immediately at the start, when Piastri got a strong launch and went side by side with Verstappen into Turn One. Verstappen cut the chicane, claiming he was forced off, but the stewards disagreed and handed him a time penalty, which he served at his pit stop. That allowed Piastri to build a lead of nearly five seconds, which he managed carefully through the race, eventually finishing 2.8 seconds ahead.
Behind them, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc delivered a strong performance to take third place—Ferrari’s first podium of the season. He executed an excellent long first stint on medium tyres before overtaking Mercedes’ George Russell, who had pitted earlier. McLaren’s Lando Norris, recovering from a qualifying crash that left him 10th on the grid, finished just behind Leclerc in fourth. Norris ran a long first stint on hard tyres and led briefly before his pit stop. Despite closing in on Leclerc in the final laps, his medium tyres dropped off and he couldn’t complete the move.
Driver’s championship
Piastri now leads the drivers’ standings by 10 points over Norris, with Verstappen two points further back. The Australian praised the team’s improvements on race starts, saying that getting ahead at Turn One was key: “Once I got on the inside I wasn’t coming out in second.”
Verstappen appeared frustrated with the decision but avoided elaborating, simply thanking the fans in Jeddah and looking ahead to Miami.
Both Williams scoring points again
Elsewhere in the field, Andrea Kimi Antonelli drove a quiet but solid race to finish sixth behind Russell. Lewis Hamilton, still struggling in the Ferrari, ended up seventh. Williams scored with both cars—Carlos Sainz took eighth and Alex Albon ninth—while Isack Hadjar rounded out the top 10 in his Racing Bull.
The race opened with a first-lap collision between Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, but there were no further interruptions—a rare safety car-free event in Jeddah.
Next Formula 1 weekend
Formula 1 now heads into a two-week break before the Miami F1 racing weekend from 2–4 May, where Norris claimed his maiden victory last season.
