Formula 1: Piatri on the couch: Australian new World Cup leader

After his maneuver for victory in the best Max Verstappen manner, Oscar Piatri wanted to lie down first. “I’m looking for a couch,” said the 24-year-old Australian after his triumph at the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia, even over 30 degrees in the evening. A week after his victory in Bahrain, the McLaren pilot followed up and snatched the leadership in the Formula 1 classification of his team-mate Lando Norris-for the first time since 2010, a driver from Down Under is in first place. The last until then was Mark Webber – Piatris Manager.

With his ripped off coolness performance on the dangerous high-speed course, Piatri gave the surprisingly re-strengthened Max Verstappen-but thanks to a time penalty against the defending champion. The 27 -year -old Dutch made it to second place and came closer in the end.

After the surprise pole the day before, Verstappen underlined that nobody should write him down in series because of the stubborn Red Bull in the fight for his fifth World Cup title. “We gave everything we could. It is what it is, but this weekend brought a lot of positive things,” he said. At first he preferred not to talk about the time penalty after Piatri’s maneuver when he had climbed out of his car sweaty.

In third place in Dschidda Charles Leclerc drove in Ferrari, followed by Norris as fourth. The 25-year Briton is already going on the World Cup lead. After his third victory in the fifth Grand Prix, Piatri now has ten points more than Norris and twelve more than stages. For Nico Hülkenberg it was only 15th in the clean.

Not a good day for the only German pilot

Everything started on the start. To the great surprise of everyone – including himself – Verstappen had made it to the poles, the 42nd of his career. His lead over Piatri: Ten thousandths of a second.

Already at the start of the Grand Prix Hattricks with three races on three consecutive weekends, Verstappen in Japan had brought everything out of the RB 20, which was so complicated. In Suzuka, he was able to defend his poles and create his first win of the season with the winning of Japan’s Grand Prix and dupe the McLaren duo in the actually stronger car.

Norris with tire risk to qualifying crash

Norris already fell behind in Saudi Arabia. Driving errors, crash, only tenth place in qualification. Also meant: risk to get forward in the race. Only Norris made the toughest tire set open at the start. And at temperatures of just under 40 degrees in Dschidda.

Piatri and Verstappen waited at the front on the middle -wide tires that the red traffic lights go out. When it happened, Piatri caught the somewhat better start. In addition to Verstappen, he crowded into the first curve with a slight advantage, it became tight for the Dutch, he gave away, left the route and drove back on the side of Piatri on the side of the asphalt.

“When I was inside, I knew that I won’t get out of the second one,” said Piatri about the decisive scene of the race. Otherwise, otherwise offset. “Oscar actually won the race at the start,” emphasized McLaren’s team boss Andrea Stella.

Red Bull felt right and refrained from an announcement, instead his racing engineer Verstappen informed about the five seconds he got. “This is damn wonderful,” commented Verstappen cynically.

Due to an early Safety car phase due to an accident by Verstappen’s team-mate Yuki Tsunoda and the French alpine driver Pierre Gasly, Verstappen was not able to get out of a lead. Piatri also stayed large in the rear -view mirror when Bernd Mayländer drove the Safety Car, which has been used there at least once since the first race in Dschidda.

Norris had benefited from the failures of Tsunoda and Gasly who started in front of him and continued to work. However, the 25-year-old did not always act cleverly. Twice he overtook record world champion Lewis Hamilton in Ferrari so that he could counter.

By radio to Verstappen: “Give everything you have”

Now Norris made a tougher tire paid. The competition on the rubber with the yellow marking gradually had problems. Obviously not Verstappen, he expanded the lead over Piatri to almost three seconds. George Russell in Mercedes was almost nine seconds ago.

Time to act at McLaren: Piatri came to the box and now let the most durable tires open. Russell also came in. Now the team around Red Bull’s strategy Hannah Schmitz was in demand. And the exceptional skills. “Give everything you have,” his racing engineer sparked before taking his protégé to change the tire.

The mechanics kept five seconds, then they changed the tires. Piatri was now before Verstappen, who briefly hung behind Hamilton. Ultimately, he could no longer get Piatri. After the weekend to forget to forget in Bahrain, more was previously expected than Verstappen and Red Bull had expected.