Oscar Piastri won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, his third win from the five Grands Prix this year. He now also leads the Drivers’ Championship, the first time an Australian has done so since the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix, when that honour fell to Mark Webber, Piastri’s manager.
Four teams have now won this race, with Red Bull having three victories to its name, while McLaren joins Mercedes with one. This was the Woking squad’s fourth win of the year, its 193rd in total.
Max Verstappen claimed his third podium finish of the season with today’s second-place finish, meaning he has always been a top-three finisher in Jeddah with two wins and three second places. Charles Leclerc was third for Ferrari, his third podium here, with one second place and two thirds in the past two years.
There were few surprises on the grid, with just four drivers (Norris, Stroll, Hadjar and Hulkenberg) choosing to run the Hard for the first stint with the other 16 all going for the Medium. Three of these (Doohan, Ocon and Bortoleto) then immediately made the most of the first lap Safety Car following the collision between Gasly and Tsunoda, to switch to the Hard.
The strategies chosen matched pre-race expectations, both in terms of the number of stops and the timing of the pit stop windows. Of the top teams, the only ones that tried something different were Leclerc, who went as long as possible on his first stint on Mediums (lap 29), and Norris who started on the Hard, pitting on lap 34. In fact, the longest stint of 49 laps was completed by Ocon (Haas), who having stopped at the very beginning, then went all the way to the chequered flag.
Oscar Piastri – P1
“Very, very happy to have won, that was a tough race! We’ve put a lot of work into our starts recently, and in the end, that’s played a big part in the victory. It was really tricky out there at times, chewing up the tyres, but once we got into clean air it was nice. The team did a great job executing the strategy and we did all the parts right that we needed to.
“We’ve still got work to do, it’s very close at the front, but it’s been a great weekend. We can now turn our attention to working hard at the factory next week before heading to Miami.”
Max Verstappen – P2
“Overall, it was a very promising race. We were a bit unfortunate with the penalty, but besides that the car was strong. We had a lot of difficulties on Friday with our tyre management, so to have such a positive Saturday and Sunday meant that we really improved the car a lot. I was positively surprised to see how competitive we were on the mediums. I, of course had to try and open up a gap, but to actually pull away from the cars behind was nice. Afterwards on the hards, it took a bit of time before I felt fully comfortable and we were getting a bit of understeer in the car. Despite everything in the race, getting P2 quite close behind Oscar was overall a positive weekend for us. Of course, on tracks with higher degradation we still have more work to do, but we did well today with the set up, the car went well and we had really good race pace. Especially after Bahrain, this was a good weekend to finish off the triple header and we just need to keep working and be as consistent as possible. It really has been a good and positive race and it is promising for the races ahead.”
Charles Leclerc – P3
“We absolutely maximised everything this weekend. We executed the race perfectly, both in terms of strategy and the pit stop. Our mechanics have worked very hard to arrive at this level and I’m really proud of the job our team did today. We made the most of it.
“Looking forward, we have to focus on qualifying. Sector one was our main weakness in qualifying here, while it may have been our best sector in the race, so we will work on finding the right balance there and push to make another step forward.”
Mario Isola – Pirelli Director of Motorsport
“This Grand Prix matched our pre-race expectations in terms of tyre performance and the way the strategies worked. Despite bringing a softer trio of compounds compared to last year, and with track temperatures on average 7 °C higher, degradation on the C3 and C4 was very minimal. It meant that, given how evenly matched are the teams, the way the race played out was the natural outcome.
“We only saw a few cases of blistering on the left front, but not enough to impact tyre performance in a significant way. As for overheating, some cars struggled a bit, but it was to be expected with these temperatures and on a track where the tyres never get a chance to “breathe”.
“Now we have the first chance to catch our breath before heading for another continent, as we prepare to race in the USA for the first time this season, in Miami. At a track with very different characteristics to this one, we will have the same selection of dry tyre compounds as were used here in Jeddah, and yet again that will be a step softer than last year’s race. It will be interesting to see how the teams deal with that, especially as it will be the second Sprint weekend of the year.”
