F1 Saudi GP: Piastri beats Verstappen, leads drivers’ championship

Oscar Piastri’s victory put Australia on top of the Formula One world championship for the first time since 2010.

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri cruised to victory in the Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix to move atop the driver’s championship after five races on the season.

The 24-year-old became the first driver this season to win while not starting on the pole, and he comfortably finished the race ahead of runner-up Max Verstappen of Red Bull, who was given a five-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage in the opening lap of the race on Sunday.

Charles Leclerc finished third to give Ferrari its first podium of the season. Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris finished fourth, while Mercedes’s George Russell finished fifth and Kimi Antonelli was sixth.

With his third victory of the season, and second consecutive after winning at Bahrain last week, Piastri becomes the first driver from Australia to lead the drivers’ championship standings since Mark Webber in 2010. It is the first time Piastri has led the drivers’ standings in his F1 career.

Piastri, who began the race from second position on the starting grid, ultimately took the lead on the 6.1km (3.8-mile) track after Verstappen served his five-second penalty during a pit stop on Lap 22. He finished off his fifth career victory in his 51st start without much of a challenge from Verstappen, crossing the finish line 2.84 seconds ahead of the reigning world champion.

In addition to 2025 race victories in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Piastri also won the second race of the season in China. McLaren has won four of the five races after Norris won the season-opening race in Australia.

Verstappen’s runner-up finish came after he won the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix in two of the last three years.

In the drivers’ championship, Piastri has 99 points to Norris’s 89 and Verstappen’s 87. Champions McLaren stretched their lead over Mercedes in the constructors’ standings to 77 points.