A great day for Australian F1 fans as Oscar Piastri win the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix and takes the Championship lead for the first time. Talking of firsts, our 2025 Saudi Arabia F1 Grand Prix Result Summary wins the race for covering just enough from the race.
This 2025 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result, Laps that Matter summary, Review & Ratings which gives you just enough to catch up with. With just a hint of cynicism, bias, opinion and colour. The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered, or don’t have enough time.
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2025 Saudi Arabia F1 Grand Prix Result Race Summary
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Here’s where we capture the laps where stuff happened. We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Setting the scene – Like in Japan the McLarens looked dominant and pole position was a mere formality, but Max Verstappen spoiled whatever party McLaren had planned by taking pole position off Oscar Piastri by 0.01 second. Like in Bahrain Lando Norris had an off session, this one worse than previous as he binned it into the wall on his first attempt in Q3, leaving him 10th and even more dejected than after Bahrain. So it’s advantage Oscar, and advantage Max. Further back George Russell continues his great season with third and Charles Leclerc enjoyed his Ferrari more than Lewis Hamilton.
Even further back is Lance Stroll who qualified 16th bit also qualified for the record of the driver most eliminated in Q1. His snipe saying if McLaren drivers were in Saubers for ten seasons they’d have a lot too, and is pure S(T)roll. He forgets that no one as crap as him would still be in F1, Sauber or not, and certainly not in a Sauber for ten seasons. They’d be sacked after two ordinary seasons. Or much less if you drive a Red Bull. No other driver has a rich enough father to keep them in F1 for so long despite a gulf in ability and attitude. Hopefully rumours of a sale of Aston Martin to anyone else happens before 2026 so Lance Stroll can keep his Q1 record and keep his hands off a Newey Championship winning car.
Lance Stroll rant over, time for the race which looks cool enough under lights, but probably not that cool for the drivers all decked out in cooling technology. But there’s loads of LEDs, fireworks, drones, flashing stuff, lasers. Let’s hope there’s all the above and more in the race ahead.
GRID (Starting Order) – VER PIA RUS LEC ANT SAI HAM TSU GAS NOR
Lap 1 – Oscar Piastri makes a good start from second and he has the inside line into turn one despite Max Verstappen putting on the squeeze in the short run to the first corner. But pole sitter Verstappen keeps the lead after he cuts the corner at turn one. As do a few cars behind him. But Verstappen may not keep the place, and it is under investigation, replays show Piastri didn’t give much room so it might be square. A few corners later and we have the first crash of the race with both Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda into the wall at turn five. Gasly’s car is trashed, but Tsunoda manages to get going again, but retires in the pits at the end of the lap. Looking at the replay he looks the one at fault as Gasly appears to be well in front as Tsunoda nudges the Alpine’s left rear whell.
SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED
ORDER – VER PIA RUS LEC ANT HAM SAI NOR ALB ALO
SAFETY CAR EXITS
Lap 4 – The race restarts and Max Verstappen blows them away at the restart, he’ll need it, as his five second penalty from the first start is announced. Piastri is under massive pressure from Russell going into turn one, but the Australian holds on. Behind them all the drivers behave themselves this time. Isack Hadjar is an eye catcher – up to 10th from 14th on the grid as he puts a good pass on Alonso for the final point.
Lap 6 – In championship damage limitation mode, Lando Norris is 8th, and looking likely to get by Carlos Sainz’s Williams pretty soon. He’ll need to if he doesn’t want to lose too much ground to Piastri and Verstappen. Norris does get by on lap 7 into turn one quite easily. The McLaren driver did start on the hard tyres, the only driver in the top ten to do so.
Lap 10 – At the front Oscar Piastri has closed in on Max Verstappen to within half a second, and the Red Bull has a five second penalty so advantage Piastri. A few more replays of the turn one lap one incidents shows that Max was possibly harshly treated as Piastri didn’t give much room and did look to go quite deep into turn one. But knowing how stewards were probably going to rule, the team probably should have told him to give the place over. As is stans George Russell is the only other driver with five seconds.
ORDER – VER PIA RUS LEC ANT HAM NOR SAI ALB HAD
Lap 12 – Lando Norris passes Lewis Hamilton for 6th going into the final corner of the lap, but DRS proves a real party pooper as the Ferrari immediately passes him back going into turn one. The same thing happens on the next lap. Eventually on lap 15 Norris gets the job done for real.
Lap 17 – The pit window opens for some pit stops, which would be good as the on track action is a little thin. At the fron Verstappen is now over two seconds to the good of Piastri and importantly now over seven second clear of George Russell in third. Norris in sixth is 15 seconds behind the leader and on Kimi Antonelli’s tail for 5th. Decent recovery drive from Norris so far. And Norris gets past Antonelli into turn one on lap 19.
Lap 20 – Oscar Piastri pits for tyres, the first front runners to do so. He was three seconds behind Verstappen as he pit and lost maybe a second on the pit stop too. Antonelli and Alonso pit too. Ocon pitted a lap earlier but as he was second last it wasn’t worth mentioning before the faster cars. Piastri rejoins 6th, Antonelli 11th.
Lap 21 – George Russell pits from second and he rejoins in seventh with Sainz between him and Piastri. Meanwhile Verstappen is flying trying to make up the five seconds he’ll lose at the pit stop thanks to the lap one penalty. Also flying is Piastri who flew past Lewis Hamilton for 4th at a part of the track which sees little overtaking.
Lap 22 – Max Verstappen pits, takes his five second penalty, exits and despite his on track efforts leading up to the stop he loses the lead to Piastri, and can also enjoy Lewis Hamilton in between on track. And Hamilton is holding Verstappen up, which makes Piastri’s pass so important. Verstappen passes Hamilton into the final corner of lap 23 and the Ferrari pits anyway. This completes most of the pitstops of the top ten, except Lando Norris, who started on hard tyres so can go a little longer yet and the leading Charles Leclerc who is at the whim of Ferrari tacticians, so best of luck.
ORDER – LEC NOR PIA VER RUS HAD ANT HAM STR HUL
Lap 26 – Lando Norris is slowly dropping back from Charles Leclerc, but it has been a decent effort on the harder tyres. The top five cars are all four seconds apart for some nice halfway symmetry. The biggest gap is Hadjar in 6th from Russell in 5th (10 seconds). For the time being, Nico Hulkenberg has a point for Sauber, but yet to pit. He’ll probably rejoin towards the back. Talking of the back, Alonso has a scary moment with hulk’s team mate going into turn one a few laps back. Talking more of the back, Hulkenberg loses places before the pit stops to both Williams drivers.
Lap 30 – Charles Leclerc pits from the lead and rejoins in 5th with no cars around him, which should be nice on his new tyres. He’s now ahead of Antonelli who has just passed Isack Hadjar for 6th. Norris now leads.
Lap 33 – Lando Norris is still yet to pit and Piastri in second is closing in on him, but not that quickly, Norris still has a three second gap. Piastri himself has a handy five second gap to Verstappen in third and it’s six seconds further back to George Russell who will need to start looking over his shoulder at Charles Leclerc who is setting fastest laps behind him.
ORDER (pitstops) – NOR (0) PIA VER RUS LEC ANT HAD (0) HAM SAI ALB
Lap 34 – Lando Norris pits for tyres and rejoins 5th and five seconds behind Leclerc. Wouldn’t rule out a podium here, as he will be on the faster tyre with not as many laps to care about the wear like the other drivers had to do with their first medium stints.
Lap 38 – Maybe smelling the McLaren catching him up, Charles Leclerc passes George Russell for third place and the final podium.
ORDER – PIA VER LEC RUS NOR ANT HAM SAI ALB HAD
Lap 41 – Lando Norris passes George Russell for 4th place as his damage limitation drive continues. As it stands, he will lose the Championship lead, but not by much.
Lap 43 – Lando Norris under investigation for his exiting of the pit lane, for crossing the pit lane line as exited. Replays show it looks pretty tight, and given the McLaren driver had a massive lead to the car behind, who was going to be slower, and Norris got no advantage, a penalty would be harsh. But the FIA is very petty, so who knows. It is dropped a lap later, and rightly so.
Lap 44 – Looking further forward and Piastri is doing it easy enough in front, a four second lead to Max Verstappen, who has five seconds in his pocket v Charles Leclerc. Lando Norris is three second behind Leclerc and catching. Likely battles remaining further behind are Antonelli v Hamilton for 6th and Willaims v Hadjar for 8th.
Lap 46 – Oscar Piastri may not be doing it that easy in front. He has complained on separate occasions about a Red Light from a balcony at turn 10 and a car in front of him slowing him down which looks far enough ahead to need binoculars to find. Maybe he’s worried about Verstappen closing in to closer to three seconds. Or Landon Norris closing in to under two seconds to Leclerc for third.
Lap 48 – George Russell on the radio worried about his tyre disintegrating. Not the place you want that to happen in. Although, nowhere would be fun. Norris is 1.4 seconds behind Leclerc with a couple of laps to go. Probably not quite close enough. Same for Verstappen who is within 2.6 seconds of Piastri.
FINAL LAP – Despite some late race stress getting past back markers, Oscar Piastri wins the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix and takes the World Championship lead, a rare occurrence for an Australian driver. Pity very few would be watching live as it is 4:30am on the east coast as he crosses the line. Piastri is as excited as ever, which sounds somewhere between winning third in the Melbourne Cup sweep and getting a close carpark at the shops. Lando Norris closes but not enough on Leclerc who takes a final podium for Ferrari. Mercedes were next best today but another double points finish helps. Behind that there wil be drivers happier with small collect of Championship points than others.
FINAL ORDER (Across the line) – PIA VER LEC NOR RUS ANT HAM SAI ALB HAD
Here we go through the field and highlight the very best (Great) of the race, and the plodders, the over-ambitious, the out of luck, and simply hopeless (Grape).
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. 5 points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 /-2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
THE GREAT-EST – OSCAR PIASTRI
Showing to be the more reliable of the two McLaren drivers at the moment, and although he missed pole position by half an eye-blink, he did the job during the race. Held his own against Max Verstappen at the start, which isn’t easy to do, and took advantage of Verstappen’s penalty. Also got lucky with his team mate and nearest rival crashing in Q3 of qualifying. Takes the Championship lead. Based on recent performance, he probably won’t give it back.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
MAX VERSTAPPEN – A second race in three where he pulls a pole position out of the Red Bull’s arse. The five second penalty could be argued as unlucky, and his driving before the pit stop was great as ever, but once Piastri got in front after the pit stop he couldn’t quite match it.
CHARLES LECLERC – A podium for the Ferrari driver and another weekend of smashing Lewis Hamilton. About the maximum he could hope for, but a well driven race none-the-less.
LANDO NORRIS – Surely would prefer not to have crashed in Q3, but a good recovery drive.
GEORGE RUSSELL – Another solid, anonymous weekend. If his car was a little quicker he could stealth his way into championship contention.
KIMI ANTONELLI – Although he has a much better car than most rookies, he is doing a much better job than most rookies. Another very solid race more than spectacular, but Mercedes will take that for now.
ISACK HADJAR – Made good progress early, and raced in the top ten with the help of his hard tyre strategy. But unlike his compeditors for Red Bull drives, he didn’t crash on lap one and was racing well in the top ten.
THE GRAPE-EST – LANCE STROLL
Sets a new record for Q1 exits and F1 petulance.
DISHONOURABLE MENTIONS
PIERRE GASLY – Lap one exit courtesy of Yuki Tsunoda ruined a top ten qualifying and potential points finish.
YUKI TSUNODA – Qualified 8th in a decent performance for a tsecond Red Bull driver, but it was well down on the pole sitting team mate and his first lap DBF, looking like it was caused by him won’t help. But in the grand scale of Red Bull number two drivers, it’s not the worst.
JACK DOOHAN – Elimination in Q1 and circulating at towards the back of the field won’t help save his drive.
LEWIS HAMILTON – Whilst not terrible results in race and qualifying, they are not multiple world champion great.
Was it a good race, loads of action, a tense ending, a surprise result or DNF, or just a big, fat, snooze-fest?
We rate the big race itself, so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
PRE RACE ACTION (FP, QUAL, SPRINT, OFF TRACK etc) – 3 / 5
Not much off track action as Red Bull keep their drivers for another race. And the incidents and accidents were lower than expected in Practice sessions given the fast nature of the track and walls. But Lando Norris livens up the race weekend by putting it into a wall in Q3.
ON TRACK ACTION (RACE) – 6 / 10
Unsurprising first lap crash box ticked and the ever present safety car at Jeddah came early. The first corner between Verstappen and Piastri was exciting and the fallout decided the race. Some good racing behind the top two as Lando Norris recovered from 10th in qualifying to 4th by race end. There was some good midfield racing to keep fans interested enough.
ANY SURPRISES? – 1 / 5
Not really, the first corner could and probably would have ended in tears of it were Max Verstappen vs anyone else.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 5 / 5
The Championship lead changes hands as Piastri dominates Lando Norris with his coolness in qualifying and control of the race. Lando Norris races well, and he always will, but he can’t give up eight grid places at every race. Max Verstappen’s pole position shows the Red Bull can never be discounted for the Championship.
ENDING – 2 / 5
There was a hint of a few battles towards the end and a potential penalty hanging over Lando Norris, but nothing too exciting ended up happening.
OVERALL RATING – 17 / 30
Not a bad way to spend the early hours of a Monday morning, especially given the end result was an Australian win and Australian Championship lead.
2025 F1 Season Race Ratings
R1 – Australian Grand Prix – 27/30
R2 – Chinese Grand Prix – 11/30
R3 – Japanese Grand Prix – 18/30
R4 – Bahrain Grand Prix – 19/30
2025 F1 Season Preview Gear
F1 2025 SEASON – THINGS TO LOOK FOR AND AVOID
F1 DONKEY AUSTRALIAN GP BOLD PREDICTIONS
2024 F1 Season Review Gear
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the race soon as it is currently being calculated and will be ready on Monday.
2024 F1 SEASON FULL RACE REPORT HISTORY
