Madrid, APR (EFE) .- The Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren) became the new leader of the Formula One world Cup by winning this Sunday the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia, the fifth of the year, in the urban circuit of Yeda; where he relieved his partner, the Englishman Lando Norris; which minimized damage and concluded fourth after advancing six positions in the race.
Piastri, 24, achieved his third victory in the F1 – the third of the year – to win the hot night race – the “toughest” life ” – ahead of the quadruple world champion of the Dutch world Max Verstappen (Red Bull), which had come out from the ‘pole’, and of the Monegasco Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), which also rose to the podium in a test that the Span Sainz (Williams) and the double Asturian world champion Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) finished eighth and eleventh, respectively.
The Australian confirmed his candidacy for the title after imposing himself on the fastest urban track -and the longest third, after Spa (Belgium) and Las Vegas (USA) -, very technically and potentially dangerous. In a race that all ended up exhausted, with temperatures of 32 degrees Celsius and 48 percent moisture, and that decided in the first curve, in which, by defending against the risky attack by Piastri, Verstappen was sanctioned with five seconds for skipping the first ‘Chicane’.
Piastri, with three wins in the first five evidence, presented his declaration of intentions on the banks of the Red Sea. In his third season in the Queen category – after winning the F3 and the F2 – he ran to become the first Australian to win the World Cup since he did it for the last time, in 1980, Alan Jones. The immutable prodigy of Melbourne leads with 99 points, ten more than his English partner and with twelve respect for Verstappen, which not a few want to get out of the equations, but that optimizes the resources of a theoretically inferior car.
Verstappen had done it again on Saturday, when, after the McLaren had commanded Friday’s training and, hours before, the last training -always with Norris ahead of Piestri-, his quadrages second ‘pole’ in the queen category was scored. The second of the year, after Suzuka (Japan), where he had won the race.
Norris, runner -up last year, who had arrived leader in Arabia with three points on his Australian colleague and eight with respect to the Dutch star; He sowed doubts about his leader conditions when, in the third round of the qualification, he crashed into the wall – fortune, without regretting personal damage – in the fifth of the 27 curves of the Saudi track, mostly damaging the left front of his car and causing an interruption, with a red flag, of the Q3, when there were more than eight minutes left for the end.
Knowing that Lando would be tenth, Piastri was not going to miss the opportunity to claim as a possible leader of the upper course of Woking School; That, for now, does not give equipment orders.
The Australian threw the rest; But when blood smells, Verstappen draws the ‘Mad Max’ inside. He signed another dream lap, captured the grid honor position and the Australian settled to go to his side from the front row.
Just behind it did the Englishman George Russell (Mercedes) – grid terroler and fifth in Meta – next to Leclerc; And from the third row they started the other silver arrow, that of the young Andre Kimi Antonelli -Stext at the end- and Sainz; who had signed his best result in a ‘quali’ since Pilota in Williams, his new team.
Lando had to look for the comeback from the fifth row, next to the Frenchman Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and behind the Englishman Lewis Hamilton (who kept the seventh of grill) and the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (Red Bull). Alonso, eliminated in Q2, started thirteenth; And just like the rest of the first thirteen on the grill, except Norris – who did it with hard – took the exit with soft tires.
Everything pointed to a race at a single stop -as finally was -, in which safety cars or even some red flag in the 50 laps planned were not ruled out. And in the first one, the Gasly and Tsunoda accident – which left after that set – invited the only ‘Safety Car’ to track. After a controversial exit, in which Verstappen defended himself from the sensational initial attack by Piastri by skipping the first ‘Chicane’. Hamilton had removed Carlos’s sixth place; And Alonso, who had won three places, was already tenth, in a points position.
When he left the ‘Safety’ track, Verstappen completed a great re-salida, while notified of the five-second sanction, which would serve in his first stop, on Tour 22.
Norris exceeded Sainz and was seventh after the resumption -in which the French debutante Isack Hadjar (RB), tenth this Sunday, relegated Alonso to the eleventh -, before starring a nice game of the cat and the mouse with Hamilton. To which, to the third attempt -Sir Lewis had returned overtaking twice -passed in Tour 15.
-Verstappen had to try to acquire an advantage greater than five seconds of sanction and squeezed everything he could before stopping, but his efforts were in bucket. Lando exceeded Antonelli and was already fifth in 19, a turn before Piastri, the young Italian and Fernando: to protect himself from the ‘undercut’ that the Englishman Oli Berman (Haas) (Haas) had thrown him (Haas)
Russell did it in 21, when Piastri got rid of Hamilton – in a little risky action, for the dirty part of the track – and a return before they called ‘boxes’ to Verstappen. That he could not help returning to the track behind the brand new leader and wasted valuable time before passing the septule English world champion.
A bad stop of Carlos, at 24, mortgaged his career something but the talented Madrid pilot ended eighth the race in which, in his own words, he felt more at ease since pilota for Williams.
Alonso, in a second youth at age 43 – and who debuted in the F1 when Piastri had not yet been born – suffered a huge scare when the Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) suffered excessively, which almost commands the wall to the Astur genius shortly after the Ecuador of the race surpassed.
Leclerc – an unique of those who came out with the environment that had not stopped – circumstantially took the command of the race, ahead of Norris, which, with the hard one, had not done so either. Stroll, Fernando’s partner, who had also come out with the most rigid tires, rolled ninth at that time, six positions ahead of his captain; Before finishing five from behind.
The Monegasco stopped in the absence of 20 and Lando was a provisional leader of the race until he stopped, finally, in 35, to install media. With the re-ordering, Piastri-marching fast return-led ahead of Verstappen and Russell. Leclerc was a fourth, ahead of Norris, Hamilton and Antonelli.
Carlos, who went to Stroll on track and Hadjar when he stopped; Rodaba eighth; A position that held until the finish line, also allowing his new partner, the Thai Alex Albon, giving him rebuild so that he was protected from the RB Gallic and secured the ninth place.
Leclerc passed to Russell and stood in podium stalls before Norris threw himself for him, after ‘riding’ by the hairs of a hypothetical five -second sanction, in an action in which no matter how little he did not step on the line when he left boxes when he made his entrance to garages, which was not even investigated.
Lando completed a good performance and minimized damage, but could not with Leclerc, who went up to the podium in a race in which Alonso squeezed to the fullest, to end in the very ultimate eleventh place, an AMR25 that is not better than the car last year. Aston Martin focuses on 2026, in search, with the change of the technical regulations, of the best possible car, which will design the Englishman Adrian Newey, the most successful engineer in the entire history of F1.
“I am going to give a hundred percent always, although it consumes you inside doing 50 laps of rating. But I don’t know how to run otherwise,” he said, in Arabia, the great and incombustible Asturian pilot.
Verstappen showed that it is still well alive and after Yeda’s career – which completed the first ‘triptych’ of the year, which started in Japan and extended in Baréin, with three weeks in a row of races – there will be a small break, until the first weekend of May, when the Miami Grand Prix (USA) is played. To which Piastri leaders will reach and, more clearly – with 188 points, 77 more than Mercedes -McLaren.
Adrian R. Huber
(C) EFE Agency
