Piastri bests Verstappen after first turn Saudi Arabian scuffle

Oscar Piastri took the world championship lead for the first time in his career after defeating Max Verstappen to win the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Piastri beat Verstappen to the first turn with a faster reaction to the lights, but the Dutchman rolled off the brakes in a bid to stay ahead and claim the corner. He sailed off the road, cutting the chicane and rejoining the track with the lead.

Both drivers argued the point over team radio, but the race was almost immediately suspended for a crash between Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly further down the field.

The pair tangled trying to navigate Turn 4-5 side by side, but the Red Bull Racing car tagged the Alpine and sent both spinning backwards into the barrier, putting both out of the race and forcing a three-lap safety car.

Stewards used the intermission to open an investigation into the Piastri and Verstappen’s first-turn disagreement and sided with the former, penalizing the Dutchman 5s for passing off the track just as he aced the restart to maintain the lead. The decision allowed Piastri to play a longer game, sitting just outside DRS range around 1.5s behind the leader to keep his strategic options open to gain from Verstappen’s to-be-served penalty.

McLaren pulled the trigger at the end of lap 19, just as a gap emerged in the chasing back behind him. A slow 3.4s stop dropped him into sixth behind Lewis Hamilton, but an unorthodox move around the Ferrari’s outside of Turn 21 got him into fifth and some clear air with which to maximize his undercut.

Verstappen waited two laps to respond but never stood a chance. Serving his penalty before having his tires changed, he rejoined the race behind Hamilton, with his gap to Piastri flipped into a 3s deficit.

With the benefit of clear air — Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris took turns in the lead but pit out of his way on laps 29 and 34 respectively — Piastri was unreachable by Verstappen, with only backmarker traffic intermittently shrinking the gap.

He took the checkered flag a 2.8s winner, the first winner of the season not to start from pole and his third victory from five grands prix this season.

“It was a pretty tough race,” he said. “I made the difference at the start — I made my case into Turn 1 and that was enough.

“Once I got on the inside, I wasn’t coming out of Turn 1 in second.

“In the end that’s what got me the race, so I’m very happy with all the work we’ve been doing at the starts.”

Victory puts Piastri 10 points clear of teammate Norris at the top of the standings, making him the first Australian to lead the title table since Mark Webber in 2010.

Verstappen was unchallenged in second but, in what will be interpreted as a protest against the result, refused to answer questions in the post-race interviews.

“I love the track. The rest is what it is,” he said. “I’m looking forward to Miami, so I’ll see you there.”

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Charles Leclerc completed the podium, the first for Ferrari this season, after holding off a fast-finishing Lando Norris in the final nine laps.

Leclerc started on medium tires but ran long, until lap 29, before switching to the hard compound, building a useful tire offset that rocketed him past George Russell for third with 12 laps to go.

Norris launched from 10th with the opposite strategy, starting on the hard tire but also running long, until lap 34, before switching to the faster medium. The McLaren driver blasted past Russell for fourth on lap 41 to put himself 4.1s behind the Ferrari driver for the final place on the rostrum.

Gradually he reeled in the scarlet car but couldn’t get himself into range of DRS, Leclerc taking his spot on the rostrum by just 1.09s.

“I was very, very happy with the race today,” he said. “I think we maximized absolutely everything.

“I’m proud of what we’ve done. Now we just need to improve the car to be fighting a little bit further up.”

Mercedes teammates Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli finished fifth and sixth ahead of a lackluster Lewis Hamilton, who started and finished seventh, last among the frontrunners.

Williams was the undisputed best performer in the midfield, with Carlos Sainz leading home teammate Alex Albon in eighth and ninth to move the team up to fifth in the constructors championship.

Isack Hadjar scored the final point of the race for Racing Bulls.

Liam Lawson finished 11th on the road but was demoted to 12th with a 10s penalty for passing off the track, swapping places with Fernando Alonso.

Haas duo Oliver Bearman and Esteban Ocon finished 13th and 14th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Lance Stroll, Jack Doohan — the only driver to make two pit stops — and Gabriel Bortoleto.