Piastri victorious at Saudi Arabia as Norris recovers to fourth

Australia's Oscar Piastri has won the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in a McLaren after taking the lead thanks to a penalty for Max Verstappen. The latter started from pole and finished second while Charles Leclerc completes the podium for Ferrari.

The stage for an interesting Saudi Arabia Grand Prix was set in qualifying with championship leader Lando Norris set to start from 10th. With this position he opted to start on the hard tyres contrary to most others who went for mediums at the start. Stroll, Hulkenberg and Hadjar were the other three opting for hards.

As the lights went out, the start seemed to go pretty well with Piastri enjoying the better start and gaining on Verstappen. Piastri had the inside into Turn 1 and a tiny advantage but, to get out of the corner in the lead and avoid a collision with the McLaren, Verstappen went wide and cut Turn 2, easily leading throughout the next lap.

The incident was soon under investigation with Piastri noting Verstappen really seemed to have no intention to make the corner. While Verstappen argued over the radio he wanted to avoid a collision, the stewards deemed it very clear who was wrong and handed Verstappen a 5-second penalty.

Meanwhile Tsunoda and Gasly came together in what was deemed a racing incident at Turn 4. The duo bumped wheels, resulting in Gasly hitting the wall and Tsunoda spinning. The result was a safety car and a double retirement.

Two laps later the race was on again with Verstappen easily ahead while Piastri had to defend second place against Russell and Leclerc. All of them retained this positions ahead of Antonelli, Hamilton, Sainz, Norris (who gained two places), Albon and Alonso. The latter gained three positions from his 13th slot on the grid but his own progress by passing Hadjar at the start was undone when the Frenchman overtook the Spaniard again on lap 4.

On lap 6, as Piastri continued to shadow Verstappen, Norris moved past Sainz and soon progressed towards Hamilton. Once there it didn't prove easy to pass the Ferrari. It took a number of laps to get close enough, and when he eventually managed to get past on lap 13, Hamilton returned the favor through Turn 1 by taking back 6th place.

One lap later, exactly the same scenario where Norris overtook Hamilton at the final corner, giving Hamilton the possibility to re-pass with DRS into Turn 1. The next lap, Norris grew smarter and opted not to overtake in the final corner, instead doing it in Turn 1 and building enough of an advantage before they completed the lap to make the move stick.

Alonso on the other hand continued to lose ground as Lawson overtook the Aston Martin for 11th on lap 16.

By lap 18 Piastri had lost touch with Verstappen, seeing the gap increase to 2.7 seconds. Russell at the same time reported his tyres "are toast", underlined by Norris easily overtaking Antonelli for 5th place as the hard tyre looked like a very solid tyre.

After Bearman, Piastri is the first to pit as he exchanged his old mediums to hard tyres in 3.4 seconds. Antonelli and Alonso were pitted that same lap while GP praised Verstappen for his performance, leaving him out on the mediums a little bit longer.

Two laps later, just as Verstappen got pitted, Piastri flew past Hamilton definitely not willing to sit back and wait for the pit straight to make it past the Ferrari. When Verstappen came back out on track he was quick but soon found himself behind Hamilton behind whom he definitely lost time for an entire lap before Hamilton got called in.

As Piastri recorded the fastest lap, Verstappen was a full second slower. One lap later the difference was half a second lap but still to Piastri's advantage, bringing their gap to 4.6 seconds.

Alonso meanwhile struggled to get away from the back of the pack and nearly ended up in the wall as Bortoleto veered to the right before Turn 1 while chasing a Haas. Clearly the Sauber driver was unaware of Alonso trying to take advantage of that battle, but as a result Alonso only just managed to stay out of the wall, centimeters between him and the wall and Bortoleto on the other side.

On lap 30, Leclerc eventually decided to pit from the lead, switching the mediums to hard tyres. This brought Norris in the lead, 3.5 seconds ahead of Piastri and 8 ahead of Verstappen. Russell followed at 13 seconds and Leclerc was next up the road then at 17 seconds.

As Piastri slowed edged closer to Norris, the latter's plan to extend his first stint as much as possible wasn't really to Piastri's liking, noting it could become an issue for him to not let Verstappen come closer.

A single lap after that, Norris was called in and he duly flew into the pitlane, locking the front left as he tried to lose as little time as possible. The Championship leader returned to the track in 5th position, 5 seconds behind Leclerc who himself was closing in on Russell. The Ferrari's fresher tyres were paying off and soon Leclerc was up in third place, eager to get away before Norris came close.

Soon enough Norris was behind Russell but as the latter started to badly struggle with his tyres, Norris quickly got ahead and went on to chase Leclerc. The Ferrari driver wasn't such an easy prey though and easily kept Norris at bay to finish on the podium, next to Piastri and Verstappen.