Piastri bests Verstappen after first turn Saudi Arabian scuffle

Oscar Piastri took the world championship lead for the first time in his career after defeating Max Verstappen to win the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Piastri beat Verstappen to the first turn with a faster reaction to the lights, but the Dutchman rolled off the brakes in a bid to stay ahead and claim the corner. He sailed off the road, cutting the chicane and rejoining the track with the lead.

Both drivers argued the point over team radio, but the race was almost immediately suspended for a crash between Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly further down the field.

The pair tangled trying to navigate Turn 4-5 side by side, but the Red Bull Racing car tagged the Alpine and sent both spinning backwards into the barrier, putting both out of the race and forcing a three-lap safety car.

Stewards used the intermission to open an investigation into the Piastri and Verstappen’s first-turn disagreement and sided with the former, penalizing the Dutchman 5s for passing off the track just as he aced the restart to maintain the lead. The decision allowed Piastri to play a longer game, sitting just outside DRS range around 1.5s behind the leader to keep his strategic options open to gain from Verstappen’s to-be-served penalty.

McLaren pulled the trigger at the end of lap 19, just as a gap emerged in the chasing back behind him. A slow 3.4s stop dropped him into sixth behind Lewis Hamilton, but an unorthodox move around the Ferrari’s outside of Turn 21 got him into fifth and some clear air with which to maximize his undercut.

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