WIN NO 3!

 SAUDI ARABIAN GRAND PRIX 2025

photo credit: formula1.com

The Australian has arrived!

Oscar Piastri won his third race of the season in Saudi this time round... whereas others are barely at a single win and pole. Piastri is on a rampage and is ready to dominate every race possible.

 At the start of the race, he had a better reaction time than Max who was on pole. Due to this better reaction, he was side by side with Max before turn 1 due to which he had the right to the corner being on the inside of Max and as expected Max did not make the corner yet kept his place. But Max this time did not get away with his cheeky tricks and got awarded a 5 second time penalty to be served during his pit stops and that was kind of the main reason which hampered his race at the end of the day. 

After the first round of the pitstops Piastri was ahead of Max and well he never looked back after that, comfortably maintaining his lead over Max till the end of the race to win the Saudi Arabian grand prix in style. At the end, Piastri won by only 2.8 seconds indicating that if Max had somehow made the first turn he would have won. But it is all speculation at the end as with Piastri's reaction time it was quite hard for him to make the corner and if he had given up the position, it is quite uncertain whether he would be able to pass as Jeddah being a high speed track gives little overtaking chances.

McLaren did the best they could do this weekend with them finishing P1 and P4. With the faultless win of Oscar in the race and Lando's inch perfect recovery drive they amassed more points than all the other teams. Lando, had the pace of the front runnners but well did not have the chance to win as he had a price to pay for his crash in qualifying due to which he started P10. But Lando made up for it and made some great passes on quite a few people , the likes of both the Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton. 

Red Bull were arguably the second fastest car in Jeddah. They were very close to the McLaren in terms of race pace and one lap pace, which was proven by Max with him taking pole and gaping Oscar before the pit stops and always lingering at the back of Oscar Piastri for the rest of the race. Max, did the best he could do with his car this weekend and made a statement that he cannot be counted out of the championship fight yet. 

But on the other side of the Red Bull garage, Yuki Tsunoda even though he had a decent qualifying, his race ended before the end of the first lap, due to his collision with Pierre Gasly at turn 4 which ruined the race for both the drivers who are best friends in fact. 

Gasly needed the points for his Alpine team which has not had a strong car this season and in the recent few races have picked up a bit of pace. On the other hand, Tsunoda needed the points as his career is literally dependent on it even more so after Lawson got demoted to the VCaRB team. He really needs to show Red Bull why should he be alongside Max and prove his worth.

Mercedes always provide some unexpected performances as they did so in this race too... but not fully as they seemed to lack pace compared to the Ferrari's in the second half of the race. George Russell completed the race in P5 which is his lowest finishing position this whole season. He had qualified P3 yet throughout the race just lacked the pace. First he got detached from Max and Oscar in the lead and then the Ferrari of Charles overtook him and then Lando Norris who came all the way from P10. By the end of the race he was losing approximately 1 second per lap to his teammate behind which just shows how severely was he lacking pace. Kimi Antonelli finished the race in P6, behind his teammate. A brilliant race from him as he did not let Hamilton gain on him and overtake him in the last few stages of the race in which the Ferrari just seemed to gain some pace out of nowhere and be as fast as a McLaren. In the end, this is one of the best results Mercedes could have hoped for and they maximized their race even though this is one of their weaker circuits.

Ferrari were on fire. In the start of the race they just seemed to not have any speed and were way behind the likes of the McLaren, Red Bull and barely with the Mercedes pace. But after the pit stops the Ferrari became fast like a rocket on wheels and Charles Leclerc marched through the field to take P3 from George Russell and in the final few laps defend the position from Lando Norris who was on fresher mediums whereas Leclerc was on the hard tires. In the end, Hamilton was gaining on Kimi but just could not overtake him. The Ferrari's finished in P3 and P7. A decent result for them. They look to be making slight inroads on the pace of the top 3 cars and hopefully would be challenging them in the races to come.

Williams this season has been arguably the top team of the midfield scoring in all races but the Bahrain grand prix. They continued there run of form by this time scoring their second double points of the season. They showed stupendous teamwork by keeping Isack Hadjar behind them till the end of the race. It was reminiscent of 2023 Singapore as again Carlos was leading a DRS train behind him keeping the car behind close in his DRS but never too close for comfort. He has mastered the art of teamwork.

Iscak Hadjar scored his second points of the season in a well deserved drive from start to the end, showing pure class and great pace to round up the final points paying position of the race. On the other hand, his VCaRB teammate Liam Lawson is having one of the worst seasons he has had out of all the partial seasons he has done in the last two years. He has not finished in the points and just seems to always somehow lose time to his teammate and end up behind them in the race, both with Hadjar and obviously Max. Overall, VCaRB could not have expected more.

Haas could not continue their points scoring streak this weekend and just seemed to lack pace due to the high speed, twisty nature of the circuit and therefore ended the race in P13 and P14. Aston looked like a better car this weekend but still not fast enough to score points. In the end, Alonso ended up in P11 which matches his best finishing position of the season but this around made some good overtakes throughout the race.

 

Again the Sauber just did not have the pace and were nowhere near the points. Also, Jack Doohan just had a terrible race and could not gain positions and finished where he started in P17, a terrible result as he did not capitalize for the team as a whole after Gasly's collision.

To summarize as a whole... Oscar looks to be the favorite contender for the championship this season due to his run of form and multiple wins this season. But the main takeaway will be that the other teams are catching up to the pace of the papaya car and are not too far behind anymore, so McLaren need to maximize every opportunity and minimize every mistake as much as possible. 

This marks the end of the first triple header of the season.

In a fortnight's time we head on to Miami, the first race on American soil this season. With the tight and twisty nature of the circuit, which is a tire eater for F1 cars, it will a race to watch with varying strategies. The things to look out for will be obviously be McLaren and Oscar and whether they can continue their stellar performance and immaculate strategies or will Lando Norris, the more experienced McLaren driver bounce back and take it away from Oscar or will one of the other top 3 teams find that extra pace within the cars to beat out the McLarens. Only time will tell....