Oscar Piastri had a smooth race from pole position to take his fifth win of the 2025 season. He was followed by his teammate Lando Norris, who sits ten points adrift in the Championship standings, and Charles Leclerc rounded out the top three after taking advantage of a safety car restart. We’ll talk about that and more below, with five race highlights.
- A Captivating Race Start
- Piastri had a lovely reaction time when the lights went out to sail away and keep first position, however Lando Norris was not so lucky, and the Brit lost out to Max Verstappen, who had originally started in third. George Russell was starting the race from fourth, which he probably wasn’t too disappointed with, considering his impressive launch off the line last year in 2024. However, he failed to replicate that this year, and ended up losing places to both the Ferrari drivers, whom also passed the second Mercedes driver of Kimi Antonelli. From there, though, the order behind the McLaren cars would still change up quite a bit throughout the race.
- Lawson Getting Fiesty
- Liam Lawson started the Grand Prix from thirteenth on the grid, and seemed determined to reach the a points position. From the opening lap, he clashed with Alex Albon in the Williams, causing Albon to run wide. The pair was not done going wheel to wheel, however, when later in the race they found each other again. This resulted in contact between the two, with Alex picking up significant damage to his front wing. Albon was ultimately the one who lost out, after earning a penalty that he served before retiring the car. Lawson also got into a spat with Ollie Bearman, in which the Haas driver was passed. However, the two were fighting as they were getting lapped by Lando Norris and Max Verstappen, which also prompted both front-runners to be annoyed and for Verstappen to voice his complaints. In the end, Liam Lawson missed out on a points-scoring position after finishing in P11.
- Antonelli’s DNF and Safety Car
- Late into the race, Antonelli ran into the gravel due to a mechanical issue with his Mercedes. This prompted a safety car, which stayed around for quite some time as the lapped cars also had to overtake to un-lap themselves. The lapped cars consisted of the drivers in the bottom eight, and they had to drive all the way around the track until they reached the back of the pack once more. This took multiple laps, but eventually the race got going again when Piastri got back to racing speed. Both McLaren cars survived the restart perfectly, and Piastri remained out of threat from his teammate for the rest of the race, and Norris was sitting comfortably in second. However, behind the two, drama was unfolding, which we’ll talk about next.
- Verstappen Clashes with Russell
- Charles Leclerc was coming up behind Verstappen in third immediately after the Safety Car restart, and was able to pass on the main straight and escaped after the pair had briefly touched. However, this was not what sparked Verstappen’s anger. That was George Russell, who came up behind and attempted to make the same move as Leclerc. Instead, the battle saw the Red Bull go wide and take to the escape route, where Max later rejoined ahead of the Mercedes. The Dutchman was told to let Russell through so as not to suffer a penalty, and after annoyed radio messages being exchanged, Verstappen appeared to be allowing George through, but instead ended up alongside the Mercedes, and the pair collided. Due to the incident, Max Verstappen received a ten-second time time penalty, which dropped him all the way down to tenth place when the checkered flag was waved.
- Outliers in the Points
- Seeing Isack Hadjar in his Racing Bulls car scoring points is starting to become a common sight, however it’s been a long wait for Fernando Alonso this season, and one that has finally come to an end today after the Spaniard finished P9 at his home Grand Prix. Pierre Gasly also joined those two in the Alpine, with the Frenchman scoring four points for himself and his team, while his teammate was down in fifteenth, and still can’t seem to get his grips with the car. An extra surprising sight that we saw this Sunday was Nico Hulkenberg in the Kick Sauber finishing in fifth place, after overtaking Lewis Hamilton in the late stages of the race. Hulkenberg had been doing a wonderful job the whole race, and the team got his tire strategy right as well so he can take home a well deserved ten points.
