On The Punt: Caulfield best bets for Saturday May 31, 2025
News Corp form analyst Chris Vernuccio takes a look at the Caulfield meeting on Saturday.
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BEST BET
NIANCE (R8 No.7): Niance won both starts last spring, including the Group 3 How Now Stakes over subsequent Group 1 placegetter She's Bulletproof. The five-year-old mare missed the autumn after a paddock accident but has looked sharp in her trials. She has the talent to measure up in better races.
NEXT BEST
JIMMY THE BEAR (R6 No.3: Jimmy The Bear made a great return at Caulfield when he chased home War Machine, who has since won again and is now the favourite for the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap. The Patrick and Michelle Payne gelding has excellent second-up form with two wins and two seconds from four runs, and he has three wins at 1600m.
BIG SWINGER (R3 No.1): Three-year-old Big Swinger thrashed his rivals first-up in a Benchmark 64 at Pakenham before stepping up to the Group 2 Arrowfield Sprint where he finished a close fifth as favourite.
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- News.com.au
Piastri wins wild Spanish Grand Prix after Mad Max penalised for meltdown
Unflustered by the chaos and late drama that was unfolding behind him, Australia's Oscar Piastri produced a faultless drive under intense pressure to win a wild Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday night and extend his lead in the Formula One world championship. Maintaining his cool after Max Verstappen completely lost his and went into meltdown on a baking hot day at the iconic Catalunya circuit in Barcelona, Piastri calmly held off his McLaren teammate Lando Norris to register his fifth win from the first nine rounds this year. In doing so, Piastri equalled the longstanding record for the most victories by an Australian driver in a single F1 season, which was set by the legendary Jack Brabham when he won his second world title in 1960, then equalled by Alan Jones when he claimed the championship in 1980. 'It has been a great year and this weekend has been exactly the kind of weekend I was looking for, we executed everything we needed to when it counted and that's all we could ask for,' Piastri said. 'The team gave me a great car once again, it's a lot of fun winning races at the moment and I've been enjoying it and I hope the team are too.' With 15 rounds remaining, Piastri still has a long way to go before he can potentially become the third Aussie to win the biggest prize in motorsport but so far, he's doing everything right. 'It was a great weekend overall,' he said. 'The overall pace was really good and we could turn it on when we needed to. I'm just very proud of the work we've done this weekend. 'It wasn't the best first practice and then we got our stuff together, it's a nice way to bounce back from Monaco, it's been a superb weekend.' With his first victory in Spain and the seventh overall of his F1 career, Piastri took his points tally for the 2025 season to 186, 10 clear of Norris (176), who is starting to loom as his only real threat for the drivers' title after Verstappen (137) plummeted 49 points behind after being handed a 10-second penalty for colliding with George Russell. Norris finished second in Spain to limit the ground he lost to Piastri after he had closed the margin to three points by winning on the narrow streets of Monaco last week. 'Oscar drove a very good race. I didn't quite have the pace to match him,' Norris said. 'We gave it our best shot. It's a long race, anything could have happened at the end of the race. 'We both got pretty sideways with the safety car restart. It was a good, fun race and for us as a team to finish one-two is even better. 'It's been a good weekend. I lost out to the better guy this weekend. 'I know where I need to improve, I know what I need to do better. I feel confident that I can do it but, yeah, can't win them all, as much as I want to. It takes time to progress and that's what I'm working on.' For the second week in a row, Ferrari's Charles Leclerc got himself on the podium after he crossed the line third, despite making contact with Verstappen's Red Bull when the race was restarted after Kimi Antonelli drove off the track and into the gravel in the closing laps, causing a yellow flag. 'Max wanted to bring me towards the inside where there was all the rubber, so I didn't want to go there,' Leclerc said. 'I was trying to push him to the left, there was a little bit of contact. Fortunately, for us there were no consequences.' There were repercussions however when a furious Verstappen twice collided with Russell. Ordered by his engineers to let the Englishman past in his Mercedes, the four-time world champion finished fifth but was demoted to 10th after the stewards took a dim view of his actions and imposed a penalty for the race and later docked three points off his driving licence, putting him at risk of a one-race ban if he reoffends. Former world champion Nico Rosberg, commenting on television, said Verstappen was lucky not to have been disqualified. 'It looked like a very intentional retaliation. Wait for the opponent, go ramming into him, just like you felt the other guy rammed into you at turn one,' Rosberg said. 'That's something which is extremely unacceptable and I think the rules would be a black flag yes. If you wait for your opponent to bang into him, that's a black flag.' Russell was unimpressed by Verstappen's behaviour and said he was also surprised that the Dutchman only got a 10-second penalty. 'I've seen the manoeuvres before on simulator games and go karting but never in F1,' Russell said. 'Ultimately we came home in P4 and he came home in P10. I don't know what was going through his mind. It felt deliberate in the moment so yeah it was a bit surprising. 'It is down to the stewards to decide if its deliberate or not. Max is such an amazing driver and so many people look up to him. It's a shame that something like that continues to occur, seems totally unnecessary and never seems to benefit himself.' Verstappen declined to talk about the incident after the race, saying: 'Does it matter? I prefer to speak about the race than just one single moment. 'We are way too slow any way to fight for the title, I think that was clear again.' Apart from a brief period when he pitted for the first time, Piastri comfortably led the 66-lap race from the moment he made a perfect getaway from pole position. Managing his tyres on the tricky circuit, he maintained a comfortable lead throughout the race even though his advantage got wiped away when the safety car was deployed after Antonelli's engine failed and the field closed up for what amounted to a six-lap sprint to the chequered flag. Norris did push Piastri hard at the restart before the 24-year-old Melburnian broke free of the DRS zone and surged ahead to join Jones (1980) and Mark Webber (2010) as the only Aussies to win the Spanish Grand Prix. 'My restart was OK from a time point of view,' Piastri said. 'I'm not sure my rear tyres were very happy though, I think I was wheel-spinning in sixth gear so not the cleanest of restarts but it was good enough. 'Just getting used to how much grip there was on low fuel, it was like being back in qualifying so that was a bit of an adjustment, but very well managed.' The next race is in Canada in two weeks' time.
News.com.au
4 hours ago
- News.com.au
Oscar Piastri wins Spanish GP as Max Verstappen loses his head
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ABC News
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