Piastri won ahead of second-placed Verstappen and third-placed Leclerc.
 |
| Photo by Peter Fox |
Oscar Piastri took the lead in the championship by 10 points ahead of Lando Norris, becoming the first Australian driver to lead the championship since Mark Webber in 2010. Oscar delivered an almost flawless race weekend, with the only slight blemish being the loss of Pole Position by just 0.010 seconds, missing out to Verstappen. On Sunday, he secured the fifth victory of his career.
His teammate, Lando Norris, experienced another rollercoaster weekend. He crashed during Q3 in qualifying, which meant he started the race from only tenth place. In the race, however, he fought his way up and finished just off the podium in fourth.
Verstappen finished second, likely losing the victory due to a 5-second penalty. The penalty was given for an incident in the first corner after the start, where he cut the corner, rejoined the track ahead of Piastri, and failed to give the position back.
The second Red Bull, driven by Yuki, did not finish the race after a collision on the first lap, which also affected Pierre Gasly, who was forced to retire as well.
 |
| Photo by Steven Tee |
Mercedes definitely had higher ambitions going into the weekend—and understandably so, as they were expected to be the dark horse of the event. In qualifying, Russell secured third place and Kimi took fifth.
In the race, however, Russell dropped down to fifth place, while Kimi finished in P6. After the race, Russell explained the drop in performance by saying they were struggling with overheating tyres.
Thanks to Leclerc, Ferrari secured their first podium finish of the season as he crossed the line in third place. Lewis struggled throughout the entire weekend and finished the race in seventh.
After the race, team principal Vasseur said the following about Lewis:
“I didn't discuss with Lewis, but it was a bit up and down. It's not that he was always off the pace, but let me discuss with him first.
“There is no problem. It is confidence with the car and a little bit with himself in that everything is new and for sure, this weekend when you don't do a long stint on Friday, we were struggling a little bit with the balance"
 |
| Photo by Lars Baron |
Double points for eighth and ninth place are heading to the Williams garage. The team from England has clearly made significant progress over the winter—they already have 25 points and currently sit fifth in the championship standings.
Their race was definitely helped by strategy, which was reminiscent of Singapore 2023. Sainz deliberately slowed down to give Albon behind him DRS, allowing him to defend against Hadjar in tenth. Hadjar at least secured one point for Racing Bulls.
interview with Vasseur/credit: motorsport.com