Oscar Piastri ignored McLaren team orders to pull off ‘sensational’ Lewis Hamilton overtake at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

Oscar Piastri cruised to victory in Jeddah to take his second victory in a row in the Middle East and his third of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

The win secures his place at the top of the Drivers’ Championship, a full 10 points ahead of teammate Lando Norris, and a further 12 points ahead of Max Verstappen.

Verstappen was handed a five-second time penalty after starting from pole, for leaving the track and gaining an advantage attempting to overtake Piastri for the lead.

The race was a one-stop strategy for all of the teams, with McLaren choosing to pit Piastri before Verstappen. He emerged behind Lewis Hamilton, which prompted his engineer to give him advice on when to overtake.

Oscar Piastri ignores team orders to pull off ‘sensational’ Lewis Hamilton overtake

Hamilton had already been in a scrap with Norris earlier in the race, when the seven-time world champion used the DRS detection line at Turn 27 to get usage along the start/finish straight and defend his position.

Piastri’s engineer, Tom Stallard, advised Piastri to stay behind Hamilton at Turn 27 and attempt the overtake on the run down to Turn 1.

“Against Lando, Hamilton was letting him through into Turn 27 and passing back into Turn 1. Let’s do overtake into Turn 1,” said Stallard.

Instead, Piastri would go on to make the move at Turn 21 around the outside of Hamilton in a move that was branded ‘sensational’ by David Croft on Sky Sports F1.

Martin Brundle “Wow.”
Croft: “That was absolutely sensational.”

Oscar Piastri takes the lead of the Drivers’ Championship

Piastri has taken the lead of the Drivers’ Championship by 10 points from teammate Norris, who has led for a total of 34 days so far in 2025.

The Australian could have likely taken it earlier in the season without his mistakes in Melbourne and during qualifying for the Japanese GP, with this now his third win of the season.

It is also the first time since 1998 that McLaren has won four of the first five races of a season, showing they are the team everyone will want to beat heading into the European season.

With one more flyaway race in Miami before Imola, the season is expected to get more competitive as it goes on in 2025.