Oscar Piastri wins in Jeddah ahead of Verstappen to take Championship lead | Report

Sebastian Alston
Apr 20
4 min read

Oscar Piastri claimed back-to-back victories and his third of the season, as he took the championship lead with victory ahead of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

It was lap 1, turn 1, which proved to be the pivotal moment of the race as Max, who started on pole, went off the track to stay ahead of Oscar, who had got alongside the Dutchman.

Max was handed a five-second penalty, and whilst he showed blistering pace up front, he wasn't able to build a big enough advantage, and Oscar undercut him to take the net lead of the race, where he stayed until the checkered flag.

Charles Leclerc took up the final spot on the podium after going long on the medium and then overtaking George Russell, who was then overtaken by the charging Lando Norris for P4.

Norris, who had started P10 after his crash in qualifying, started on the hard tyre and went long, which proved to be a good strategy as he had a tyre offset at the end of the race.

Lap 1 also saw the safety car come out, as Pierre Gasly attempted to go around the outside of Yuki Tsunoda for P8; however the two collided and ended each other's race.

Lewis Hamilton finished a lonely P7 behind Kimi Antonelli in P6, who had a comfortable but impressive race.

Williams continued their good start to the season with a double-points finish, Carlos Sainz P8 and Alex Albon P9. Their teamwork was enough to fend off Isack Hadjar, who claimed the final points-paying position. The 6 points claimed by Williams sees them jump ahead of Haas for P5 in the constructors.

F1 now takes a week off before returning with the Miami GP from May 2-4.

Quotes

Oscar Piastri: "It was a pretty tough race. I’m very happy to have obviously won, I made the difference at the start and made my case into Turn One, and that was enough.

"It was really tricky to follow out there, I couldn’t really stay with Max at the end of the first stint and I just chewed up my tyres. The clean air was nice after the pit stop, it was a clean race and we did the parts we needed to right.

"We still needed a bit more, Max was a bit too close for our liking, but a great race and a great weekend.

"Once I got on the inside, I wasn’t coming out of Turn One in second. I tried my best and obviously the stewards had to get involved, but I thought I was far enough and in the end, that's what got me the race.

"I'm very happy with all the work we've been doing on the starts and that's what won us the race for us today.

"It’s always a tough race around here, it’s a little bit later into the year so I think it's a little bit warmer and a little bit humid, definitely one of the toughest races I've had in my career so I'm happy I could come out on top in it."

Max Verstappen: "I'm going to keep it quite short. I want to say a big thank you to the fans in Jeddah. It's been a great weekend along the track and the rest is what it is. I'm looking forward to Miami. See you there."

Charles Leclerc: "It’s the way it is for now, unfortunately in qualifying we don’t manage to extract more out of the car.

"I was extremely happy with the lap yesterday and I was very happy with the race today. I think we maximised absolutely everything.

"I’m very proud of what we’ve done, but now we just need to improve the car to be fighting a bit further.

"I never expected to finish here and I thought this race was about defending the cars behind, especially Kimi so it was really good.

"We need to keep pushing to the maximum, and hopefully upgrades are coming soon in order to improve the car."

Driver of the Day - Oscar Piastri

A brilliant drive once again from Oscar, who held his cool after the incident on Lap 1 to take the championship lead. The actual DOTD awarded by F1 was given to Max Verstappen.

Biggest Flop - Lewis Hamilton

Once again failed to make any inroads on the leading pack, whilst his teammate picked up a podium.