Piastri triumphs at Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to take lead in F1 title race
Oscar Piastri won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix on Sunday to seize the lead in the Formula One world championship from McLaren team-mate Lando Norris with his third win in five races.
Red Bull's four-times champion Max Verstappen was runner-up, 2.843 seconds behind the Australian, after starting from pole at Jeddah's Corniche circuit but collecting a five-second penalty for a first corner clash with Piastri.
Charles Leclerc was third for Ferrari's first podium of the campaign and Norris clawed his way from 10th on the grid to fourth.
Victory made Piastri, triumphant in Bahrain last weekend and China last month, the first Australian to lead the championship since his manager Mark Webber in 2010 and also the first back-to-back winner this season.
Oscar Piastri celebrates after winning. AP
He now leads Norris, whose race was heavily compromised by a crash in qualifying, by 10 points after starting the night three behind.
Piastri has 99 points to Norris's 89 and Verstappen's 87. Champions McLaren stretched their lead over Mercedes in the constructors' standings to 77 points.
"It was a pretty tough race. I'm very, very happy to have won. Made the difference at the start. Made my case into Turn One, and that was enough," said the happy winner.
"Definitely one of the toughest races I've had in my career," he added after 50 laps in 30 degree temperatures around a super-fast track.
George Russell was fifth for Mercedes with Italian teammate Kimi Antonelli sixth and seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton seventh for Ferrari.
Williams had Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon eighth and ninth with Racing Bulls' French rookie Isack Hadjar the final points scorer in 10th.
There was immediate controversy at the start as Verstappen and Piastri went side-by-side into the first corner, with the Red Bull emerging ahead after cutting across the runoff.
Oscar Piastri celebrates on the podium. AFP
"He needs to give that back, I was ahead," Piastri told McLaren over the team radio. "He was never going to make that corner regardless of whether he was there or not."
Verstappen gave his version in similar fashion to Red Bull: "He just forced me off, there was no intention of him to make that corner."
Stewards decided the champion was at fault and handed him the penalty, with Verstappen reacting by saying sarcastically "Oh, that is lovely'.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner did not let it lie after the chequered flag either, complimenting Verstappen and adding: "That first corner we've all got our opinions on".
The safety car continued a sequence of appearing at all five races in Saudi Arabia so far with an appearance at the end of the opening lap after Verstappen's teammate Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine's Pierre Gasly collided and crashed.
Both drivers retired, Tsunoda after getting his car back to the pits.
The former champions, who last won a title in 1997, have made a strong start to the campaign and are sixth overall, one point behind Haas after four of 24 races.
Spaniard Sainz has joined from Ferrari alongside Thai teammate Alex Albon and Williams have scored more points already this season than in all of 2024, but wind tunnel work is now all about next year.
Vowles told reporters at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that the strategy was fully backed by the team's owners, even if it cost championship points and affected prize money payouts in the short term.
"If you want to win there is only one way to win, and you can't get caught in the now," he said.
"We were in a mess because we were short-termist all the way through the last 20 years. Some of it financially driven, some of it driven by other elements.
"It's hard for fans to understand why we're doing this but our targets are actually around introduction of infrastructure, technology systems ... how long it takes to build a front wing, how expensive it is.
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