RACE REPORT
Piastri plays his part in McLaren resurgence
Max Verstappen might have taken his third F1 title in three years but Woking’s finest is showing true fighting spirit as the season progresses. Mark Hughes reports from Lusail and Austin
Qatar GP
US GP
GETTY IMAGES
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri leads in the Qatar GP sprint but it was this race that gave Max Verstappen his third title. Left: Piastri is pleased with his sprint first-place
Amid this season of Max Verstappen domination, there are still moments when the chasers get a glimpse. Ferrari of course finally broke Red Bull’s domination at Singapore before Verstappen bounced back harder than ever to win in Suzuka. In Qatar and the US, it was the respective turns of McLaren and Mercedes to apply some stress to the hitherto dominant combo.
“I think it’s partly a reflection of how little development we’ve put on the car of late,” said Red Bull’s Christian Horner in Austin.
“We’ve pretty much switched it off and are now full on with next year’s car.” Mercedes in particular is still developing hard.
Furthermore, the sprint format – which tends to open up greater randomisation – meant Red Bull could not take Qatar and Austin for granted.
Finishing second in Qatar’s Saturday sprint race was a somewhat underwhelming way for Verstappen to have clinched his third world championship, but that’s just the way the maths and calendar combined. His only mathematical rival, team-mate Sergio Pérez, was taken out of the sprint race, squeezed between an Alpine and a Haas. That he should be racing such cars in a Red Bull just underlined how his early season title challenge had so badly fallen away. That Saturday sprint in Qatar was significant for another milestone: Oscar Piastri won an F1 race for the first time.
“In the sprint, Piastri won an F1 race for the first time ”
The rookie McLaren driver had started from pole and led all the way. The medium compound tyres on which he, Lando Norris and Verstappen started made them vulnerable at the start to the soft-tyred Ferraris and George Russell’s Mercedes and it was Russell who took up the initial chase of Piastri, with Verstappen and Norris further back stuck behind the Ferraris.
This was the perfect scenario for Piastri, though his race was made less straightforward by an early safety car, which enabled Russell on his faster-to-warm softs to deprive him of the lead on the restart lap. But those softs only had a range of a few laps before they grained, allowing Piastri to put a straightforward re-pass on the Mercedes a few laps later and to pull away. Verstappen and Norris did eventually find their way by the Ferraris and Russell, but that had taken a lot from their tyres and Verstappen was unable to close the gap to the impressive rookie.