How Piastri forced Verstappen’s hand in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

The quality of Oscar Piastri’s launch from P2 on the Jeddah Corniche grid was one of two factors which helped decide the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The other was the Red Bull machine’s response to Max Verstappen opening the steering as he went into Turn 1 side-by-side with Piastri, skittering across the run-off and then returning to the track in the lead.

Depending on which side you align yourself with, this was either a slam-dunk case of leaving the track and gaining an advantage, or an egregious example of forcing another driver off-track.

“He has to give that back,” said Piastri over the radio in as near to a harrumph as this glacially cool customer will venture.

Race control agreed and, when Verstappen didn’t hand over the lead to Piastri, the matter was escalated to the stewards and a five-second penalty arrived almost by return of post. This despite another matter commanding their attention, the collision between Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda at Turn 4 on the opening lap, which led to both drivers being eliminated from the race and the safety car being deployed while the mess was scooped up.

Thereafter Piastri appeared to be managing his pace with typical coolness, remaining within two seconds of Verstappen until shortly before pitting at the end of lap 19. Max stayed out another two laps and, having served his five-second penalty in the pits, shuffled out in fifth place with Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari between him and Piastri in third.

Verstappen duly passed the Ferrari but the track-position damage had been done. Once the late-stopping Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris pitted out of the way, there was nothing standing in the path of Piastri’s victory apart from tyre issues or driver error; neither of these eventuated and he crossed the line 2.843s ahead of the four-time world champion.

Verstappen was penalised for supposedly leaving the track and gaining an advantage at Turn 2, as he tried to fend off Piastri in Jeddah

Photo by: Gabriel Bouys - AFP - Getty Images

Could Verstappen have won had he given up the lead after the Turn 1 imbroglio? An examination of the tea leaves suggests this was tantalisingly possible. Piastri obviously had pace in hand towards the end of his final stint, as evinced by setting the fastest lap of the race – but he lost ground to Verstappen at the end of his first stint as his medium-compound Pirellis began to show signs of degradation, while the Red Bull driver was able not only to push, but to run two laps longer.

An overcut could potentially have been on, though the matter is academic now.

Speaking after the race, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said Piastri had to pit when he did because his tyres were starting to go and there was a real risk of losing out to Verstappen. Certainly the margin was beginning to stretch over three seconds on the Australian’s last lap before pitting.

So far this year it has become fashionable to state that the McLaren is the easiest car on its rubber – “interacting with the tyres in a gentle way” as Stella puts it – and the team admits it has ploughed considerable resources into achieving this. But the evidence is beginning to point towards a less definitive picture of how cars use their tyres.

"The problem is that I cannot share my opinion about it because I might get penalised. So it's better not to speak about it. I think it's better not to talk. Anything I say or try to say, it might get me in trouble” Max Verstappen

Verstappen was very strong at the end of his first stint as he pushed to minimise the damage – surprisingly so, according to Stella. Subtle variations in track surface between venues, plus ambient temperatures and driving style can alter the balance of performance and it’s misguided to assume binary positions in which a particular car is good or bad in terms of tyre degradation.

So, if the potential outcomes are a matter of conjecture, we’re left with events at the start. Having left himself with work to do after allowing Verstappen to slip ahead in qualifying on Saturday, Piastri executed the start with clinical precision, hooking up neatly to the point of being alongside within 30 metres of the line.

Max, having lost impetus with a stutter of second-order wheelspin, defended his place by chopping across but it was too late to arrest the McLaren’s progress and Piastri had the inside line into Turn 1. This much is beyond dispute.

Tyre wear was a significant factor in Saudi Arabia and Verstappen could easily have won had it not been for his penalty

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Piastri left Verstappen no option but to back off or take to the run-off, and the Dutchman has never been one for meek capitulation.

“The situation in corner one was very close in fairness, but this is a business of small margins,” said Stella. “Oscar, thanks to a good launch and positioning the car on the inside line ahead of Max, managing to keep the car within track limits, he gained the right – and obviously in that situation you can’t overtake off-track.

“So I think the case is very clear.”

He pointed out that when Norris exceeded track limits while passing Hamilton in Bahrain, the team instructed him to give the position back immediately – and he did so.

After the race, Verstappen remained tight-lipped when questioned about Turn 1 in parc ferme by guest MC David Coulthard. He continued to follow the Jose Mourinho line in the press conference.

“Yeah, the start happened, Turn 1 happened, and suddenly it was lap 50,”  he said. “It just all went super-fast. The problem is that I cannot share my opinion about it because I might get penalised. So it's better not to speak about it.

“I think it's better not to talk. Anything I say or try to say, it might get me in trouble.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner arrived at his post-race media briefing with a sheaf of screen grabs in hand and a bee in his bonnet. The stewards’ decision – based on positioning data, telemetry and in-car video evidence – was that “car 81 [Piastri] had its front axle at least alongside the mirror of car 1 [Verstappen] on the inside” and that, based on the current drivers’ guidelines, Piastri had to be given room.

"I thought it was very harsh," said Horner. "We didn't concede the position because we didn't believe that he'd done anything wrong.

Both teams have differing views of the decision, with Horner even bringing screenshots to his post-race media session to argue his point

Photo by: Ronald Vording

"You can quite clearly see at the apex of the corner that Max is clearly ahead. The rules of engagement were discussed previously, and it was a very harsh decision.

"If we'd have given it up, the problem is you then obviously run in the dirty air as well and you are then at risk with George [Russell], so the best thing to do was at that point we got the penalty, get your head down, keep going.”

Horner’s screen grabs did appear to show Verstappen’s left-front wheel marginally ahead of Piastri’s right-front, but these do not fall within the “new evidence” criteria for Red Bull to lodge a right of review. The best he can hope for is to talk to the powers that be and ask for what he termed “a re-look at” the guidelines.

“It took a couple of attempts to realise he needed to overtake Lewis in corner one. That was ultimately impactful for Lando’s chances of a podium" Andrea Stella

Leclerc’s race to third place was rather less controversial and fed into that emerging picture of tyre degradation being less clear-cut across cars than previously thought. From fourth on the grid, he also lost out at the first corner in similar circumstances to the leading pair as Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes came flying up the outside, across the run-off, and rejoined ahead of him. But Antonelli immediately moved over to let Leclerc through again.

Given that all the top 10 except Norris started on the medium tyres, it’s extraordinary that Leclerc managed to coax his Ferrari – considered to be one of the hardest of the frontrunners on tyres – to the end of lap 29 before stopping. That’s 10 more than Piastri managed.

He emerged in a net fourth place behind Piastri, Verstappen and Russell – but the other Mercedes went backwards over the course of the second stint.

“They [the tyres] were massively overheating,” complained Russell. “I was pushing hard to stay with Max at the beginning of the second stint, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold on and we fell off that cliff towards the end – I was dropping a second a lap over the last 15 laps.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff called it the "worst performance of the year" for the team

Photo by: Peter Fox - Getty Images

Leclerc went by with 13 laps to run and soon, so too did Norris. The second McLaren was running a contra strategy of starting on the hard tyres after Norris’s Q3 shunt consigned him to a 10th-place grid spot.

He’d done a good job of passing Carlos Sainz’s Williams early on but then made very heavy weather of passing Hamilton, falling into the trap of overtaking into the final corner but being ahead of the DRS detection line while doing so, therefore gifting his opponent DRS and a free pass on the start straight into Turn 1. It took four laps to make an overtake stick

“It took a couple of attempts to realise he needed to overtake Lewis in corner one,” said Stella. “That was ultimately impactful for Lando’s chances of a podium.

“We had long discussions about the starting tyres. We elected to go on the hard tyres because we were hoping, even if for a brief window, we could have some possibility to exploit the pace of the car.

“On Friday we saw that Lando was the fastest driver in terms of long run and race pace simulation. So we wanted to make sure we were in condition to exploit this.

“In a way, this was a good decision by Lando and the strategy guys – it pretty much unfolded as the simulations indicated. But at the same time I think for a podium finish today we would have needed not to lose the time with Hamilton.”

A crash in Q3 cost Norris the chance of victory and with it, the championship lead as well

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Little wonder that Norris appeared rueful after the race.

“I don’t think it was the best we could have done today,” he said. “I make life tough for myself, especially when it’s a race like that.”

Stella, typically, threw a comfort blanket around his driver, pointing out that a performance like this should be good for the erstwhile championship leader’s morale: “It shows his racecraft is absolutely brilliant, we just have to polish his Saturdays and we will be fine.”

That may be so, but the outcome of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has shifted the terrain of the championship battlefield: Piastri is now 10 points ahead of Norris, who is just two ahead of Verstappen. The rules of engagement may soon have to change…

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Photo by: Lars Baron - Motorsport Images