Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri's controversial first-corner incident at Saudi Arabian GP reviewed by Martin Brundle
Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle reviews the controversial first-corner incident at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that ultimately enabled Oscar Piastri to beat Max Verstappen to victory in Jeddah; Lando Norris' recovery drive and Lewis Hamilton's struggles also analysed
Wednesday 23 April 2025 06:02, UK
A bit of controversy always spices up a motor race and the fifth edition of the Saudi Arabian Formula 1 GP added plenty of action to go with a major first-corner drama.
Max Verstappen had delivered yet another barely believable lap to steal pole position, perhaps helped a little by a timely slipstream from his team-mate Yuki Tsunoda, Lando Norris smearing his McLaren down the wall and smart thinking by the Red Bull pit wall to fuel him for two quick runs in the remaining few minutes after the resultant red flag.
You'll not find many people in and around F1 who think Max is anything other than the best driver on the grid right now. But Oscar Piastri at McLaren is learning fast, and despite being 163 race starts behind Verstappen and 82 F1 races behind Norris experience-wise, he's now won 10 per cent of his 51 race starts and leads the world championship. And he'll only get better.
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Piastri launched better than Verstappen from second on the grid and arrived at the first corner apex easily alongside on the inside line. The driving guidelines the stewards work to have been refined this year and a driver who 'wins' a corner by being sufficiently alongside is no longer obliged to leave racing room on the outside.
It's up to the other driver to yield and fall into line. This was to stop the driver on the outside simply releasing the brakes, or even accelerating, running wide and claiming they were ahead and hadn't been left suitable space, thereby easily trapping the driver on the inside into a penalty. Which is what Max tried on Sunday evening.
'Ultra-competitive Red Bull make misread'
Nobody games the regulations as well as Max, but for the first time he gambled and lost out. Sometimes you can see incidents from different angles and debate the scenario and doubt your first impressions, but accelerating across the run-off area with relatively little steering lock had plainly given Max an unfair advantage and the lead.
I and many others had no doubt about that, and nor did the stewards who awarded a five-second penalty, mitigated down from 10 seconds because it was during the opening lap and in close combat.
He would eventually lose the race by 2.8 seconds and it's possible that if the team had told him to immediately hand back the position, he may have won. On the other hand, he was out front in clear air which helped protect his tyres, brakes and engine from overheating and gave him strong pace for all the first stint. Maybe it's worth taking a five-second penalty for that benefit…
If there had been a wall, barrier or gravel trap on the outside of turn one, Max would have yielded and tucked in behind Piastri's McLaren.
Max would continue to be livid long after the race for what he perceived as an error of the stewards, and that he had won the corner but simply been forced off. As was Christian Horner, the team boss, who steamed in to support his man.
I understand they are hardwired to be so ultra-competitive, along with endlessly being convinced that they are right and everybody else is wrong. That's why they dominated so many seasons, but they didn't read this one properly and lost out.
'Piastri shows fearlessness on way to victory'
Meanwhile, behind them Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly unfortunately got together in turn five, and both cars backed into the wall and had to retire. It was a typical first-lap incident but I have no doubt if they had their chances again they would both have left more space in the multi-corner side-by-side battle.
This gave Lando Norris a couple of early places after his qualifying crash left him 10th on the grid. The chase was on for him and the hard compound tyres he started on were working a treat.
Dispatching Carlos Sainz's Williams was done swiftly and then Lando caught Lewis Hamilton, who was having an up-and-down event which would continue until the end of the race. Lewis knew well that the DRS open rear wing detection point was after the last corner, so he kept letting Lando through into that corner so he could breeze back past on the following long pit straight.
Eventually, Lando clocked it all, hung back and then returned the compliment down the pit straight, but he'd lost three important laps of progress, which possibly cost him a podium.
He also passed Kimi Antonelli's Mercedes and then sat within view of Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, who would impressively take his medium compound tyres to lap 29. Lando would take his starting hard compound tyres to lap 34 on a counter strategy.
Piastri would pit first of the leaders on lap 19, George Russell - just about hanging on in his Merc - would stop for service on lap 20, and Verstappen pitted from the lead on lap 21. After serving his five-second penalty, he would exit in a net-second place, four and a bit seconds behind the young Aussie Piastri.
It would be a cat and mouse game until the chequered flag on lap 50 but you always felt Piastri had enough pace to fend off Verstappen, despite some lumpy traffic. Oscar put a tremendous move on Lewis Hamilton to regain a position before Lewis pitted. He clearly has little fear in fast corners, even around the outside of somebody of Lewis' calibre.
On his one and only pit stop, Norris had flirted with all the white lines and the speed-limit zone entering the pits, and then caught the attention of race control by nearly breaching the pit exit line too, but he just got away with it all and, once he dispatched Russell, set about catching Leclerc's Ferrari once more.
Both Leclerc and Norris were driving out of their skins but the Ferrari wheelsmith would take the Italian team's first grand prix podium of the year, with Lando just one second behind.
'Hamilton interviews hard to watch'
Russell would cruise home a distant fifth after his tyres cried enough, seven seconds ahead of his teenage team-mate Kimi Antonelli.
It was generally a disappointing race for Mercedes, one they described as their worst of the season, not least because they started third and fifth and ended up fifth and sixth.
Hamilton would finish half a minute behind his team-mate Leclerc in seventh, albeit showing strong pace from time to time. The pace is in there somewhere but it's a very hard watch when Lewis is doing post-race interviews at the moment. He's not happy with his performances and is clearly more than a little perplexed and disappointed.
Carlos Sainz had a very good weekend for Williams in eighth place, even slowing down to throw a metaphorical tow rope out to his team-mate Alex Albon behind by keeping him in DRS range to help fend off the ever-impressive Isack Hadjar, who claimed 10th and the final point for Racing Bulls
Haas didn't score points on this day in history and Williams now move up to fifth in the Constructors' Championship.
Fernando Alonso was seriously unhappy post-race, saying it's the worst he'd experienced in 25 years. He finished 11th after Liam Lawson was penalised 10 seconds for passing off track and not yielding the position, but remember that just two years ago in his Aston Martin he was the only driver who could keep Red Bull in sight, and they've lost serious relative pace meanwhile.
McLaren lead the Constructors' Championship by 77 points and their drivers Piastri and Norris are one-two in the drivers' standings. But if they take points off each other in future races, which is highly likely, then despite McLaren's small race-pace advantage, Verstappen, and to an extent Russell, will be there to punish that.
Norris needs to win Miami to recover his position of strength, but his opposition is mighty and only getting better and faster.
Formula 1 heads to Miami for a Sprint weekend on May 2-4, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime
