Piastri Powers To Convincing Victory In Azerbaijan

Oscar Piastri celebrates after winning Sunday's Azerbaijan Grand Prix. (McLaren photo)

BAKU, Azerbaijan – If there were any doubts about Oscar Piastri’s driving prowess following his maiden Formula One victory in Hungary, the Australian soundly erased them in Sunday’s Qatar Airways Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Putting the story of McLaren team orders behind him, Piastri drove a flawless race at the Baku City Circuit, with a diving and breathtaking lap-20 pass of polesitter Charles Leclerc at turn one giving him the lead for good.

Despite being out front for the final 32 laps, however, Piastri had to fend off numerous challenges from Leclerc’s Ferrari down the stretch.

The Monegasque tried lap after lap to use the benefit of the frontstretch DRS zone to gain momentum and pass Piastri back, but after making his lone pit stop on lap 17, Leclerc’s hard-compound tires fell off a cliff in the closing stages.

He fell back off of Piastri’s rear wing inside of six laps to go, leaving Leclerc to settle for second as Piastri collected his second F-1 win in the last five races.

“I tried at the start to get in front [of Leclerc], but once I dropped out of DRS [range] I didn’t have the pace at that point,” Piastri recalled. “After the stop, I felt like I had extra grip, and I had to go for it because I knew if I didn’t get past him at the start of the stint I never would.

“I went for a pretty big lunge, then clung on for 30-some laps,” he added. “This goes down as one of the better races of my career, for sure.”

What was shaping up to be an incident-free 51-lap race actually ended under the Virtual Safety Car, after Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez collided and crashed into the barriers on the run toward turn three while battling for a spot on the podium inside of two to go.

It appeared Perez came slightly right just as Sainz started to the left down the short straightaway, leading to contact that sent them both crashing hard to driver’s left and leaving them out of the race just short of the finish.

The shunt for third allowed Leclerc to breathe easily over his runner-up result, after being hounded by Perez moments before the latter wrecked behind him, while also elevating Mercedes’ George Russell to third in the end.

Afterward, Leclerc noted that his Ferrari simply didn’t perform as well on the hard-compound rubber as it had on the medium tires once he was put into dirty air behind Piastri.

“I think as soon as we put the hard tires on – on the medium we were very competitive – but we struggled after the pit stop,” said Leclerc. “I really thought in one corner or two I would put it in the wall; it was very close. McLaren and Oscar did an exceptional job and were just better than us today. A great shame for Carlos [crashing late]; I hope everyone is okay and [it leads to] not a great day for the team.

“On the straights I couldn’t get as close [to Piastri] as I wanted, and we lost the race earlier on when I didn’t quite defend as well as I could have … but it is [what] it is,” he added. “Sometimes you [make] mistakes, and I will learn from it.”

Just behind the podium, Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris gave a brilliant drive of his own, rebounding from 15th on the grid to come home fourth ahead of three-time defending champion Max Verstappen.

Not only did Norris outperform the Red Bull star, but he also collected an extra point by setting the fastest lap of the race on lap 42, after pitting from fifth for fresh medium tires with 14 laps left.

Norris then chased down Verstappen and made the pass for sixth with three to go, before the late crash ahead of him elevated both title rivals up two more places.

It trimmed Verstappen’s point lead down by three, to 59 with seven races remaining on the calendar.

Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso, the Williams duo of Alex Albon and Franco Colapinto, the second Mercedes of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, and Haas’ Ollie Bearman completed the point-scoring positions in the top 10.

Sunday produced a myriad of statistics, the most notable being that McLaren jumped into the lead of the Constructor’s Championship for the first time since 2014, now leading Red Bull by 20 points leaving Baku.

That’s a big statement for the Woking team, particularly given Piastri is just in his second season at the sport’s top level.

“Considering where we started when I joined the team last year, we were literally last and now we are leading the championship,” noted the race winner. “It’s a big thanks to the team for improving the car, but also improving myself [as a driver] as well.”

In addition, Williams took its first double points haul as a team since the controversial 2021 Belgian Grand Prix, while Bearman became the first driver in F-1 history to earn points for two different teams in his first two grand prix starts.

The Formula One World Championship season continues Sunday, Sept. 22 with the Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix from the Marina Bay Street Circuit. Sainz is the defending race winner.