Although the most chaotic Saudi Grand Prix is the most chaotic, the fifth round of the 2025 season of Formula 1 still had a lot of space for a decent mixture of out -of -competition records and Sundays to forget.
Here are our choices for the main winners and losers:
Winner – Oscar Piastri
The Grand Prix wins the number five for Oscar Piastri and the advance of the championship for the very first time.
Piastri was not devastating all weekend. If anything, he was probably the second fastest McLaren driver And Max Verstappen stung him with pole in undoubtedly a slow bull red.
But Piastri was perfect on Sunday. He was superb in combat with Verstappen downwards 1, remaining on the right track with an energetic decision that bait Versestapn to obtain a penalty.
Subsequently, he kept Verstappen in the range, put the necessary accounts after the previous stand and was impeccable in his breed management thereafter.
“He looks like a veteran,” said his boss of the McLaren team Andrea Stella, despite being only in her 51st F1 race weekend. And it’s very difficult to disagree. – Josh Suttill
Losing – Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton finished 31 seconds behind his teammate on Sunday, which would be easier to take if it was not, overall, a simple reflection of the weekend he had made.
Jeddah was not his friend at all in the era of the ground. But if we talk about the era of the field, the Ferrari version of Hamilton is supposed to be different from the Mercedes version of Hamilton in these regulations.
So far, except for this initial burst in China … it really doesn’t look like, isn’t it? – Val Khorounzhiy
Losing – Yuki Tsunoda
Yuki Tsunoda looked for another solid Red Bull weekend. He had qualified decently and you have to imagine that he could have been in the mixture to at least beat the best of midfielders, Carlos Sainz, eighth.
But we will never know because of this shoven of the race with Pierre Gasly. It could not have looked more like a racing incident if he tried, but it undoubtedly leaves him like a loser.
He also leaves Tsunoda with non-representative transport of only two points of what was a decent start to the senior team through the triple head. – JS
Winner – Williams
Williams not only obtained the best points available for a midfielder team in Jeddah, but did it in a very impressive way.
Her cars would both have finished a place below if she had not orchestrated the final passage by asking Sainz to keep Alex Albon regularly in the DRS range while Isack Hadjar’s racing bulls chased them.
It was not the most complicated strategy, but always the one that made a lot of confidence in its engines – and in particular in the capacity of Sainz to see the situation as a whole.
This also helps that it is the most complete weekend so far by signing the team team. – VK
FORTE – Lance Stroll
After an encouraging first couple, Lance unfortunately walks to be anonymous in Saudi Arabia.
It is not all its fault – Aston Martin is probably only the ninth best car in the 2025 network on average so far, and the two pilots have been slower in qualifying this year around Jeddah than what they have succeeded in 2024 – Fernando Alonso by a half -two Q1).
Yet another Q1 outing – its 75th – means that Stroll now holds one of the most undesirable F1 records. His thorny response, but not completely unfair: “Yeah … Well, you put the drivers of McLaren in a Sauber for 10 years and they will have the most Q1 outings. It is dependent on the car.”
At one point, throws, yes, the problem is that you were beaten by one of these race jumpers, and moreover, your teammate did so much more with this car than this weekend. – Ben Anderson
Winner – Red Bull’s turnaround
This could be another Verstappen winner entry – we end up doing it a lot – but although it remains the only pilot capable of extracting high level performances from the Red Bull, it was one of those rare races that he did not win but managed to prove that he could have won.
The racing performance image strongly suggests that Verstappen would have won if he had left legally in turn 1-2. He will therefore sting, that he did not do it, but since the Red Bull, even in his hands, seemed the best part of a second on racing races on Friday, it was another remarkable turnaround.
And after the stockings of Bahrain, it was a weekend that made a driver’s title based on Bull RB21 Red Bull more credible again – even if the manufacturers are so obviously a lost cause. – VK
Loser – alpine
The six Alpine points so far this season are six more than her 2024 car had succeeded through the same number of Grands Prix – and this season went well at the end.
“(IT) has the impression that you must seize these opportunities as soon as they are available – but I am not too worried,” said Gasly, on the first round in a tangle with Tsunoda.
“With the rhythm we have, I am convinced that we will be able to put ourselves in the mixture in the next weekends.”
This may be the case, but Williams and even Haas have increased the scoring in the meantime, and Alpine – even the limited engine as it is – should at least target them.
And he also needs more of his second car in the sessions that really matter. Jack Doohan’s theoretical rhythm was generally not far from Gasly in 2025, but he did not really contribute to the most important sessions. This is generally normal for a recruit, but it will have to change as soon as possible – lest it repeat the trajectory of Sargeant Logan, with exactly the same result. – VK
Winner – Charles Leclerc
There is clearly a potential burden in this Ferrari – we continue to see it in the mid -race districts, and always – China sprint apart – in the hands of Charles Leclerc.
The fact that he needs such a precise combination of circumstances to show that the rhythm makes the frustration of Leclerc after having qualified all the more understandable, and his charge on the podium today all the more impressive. – Matt beer
Loser – Mercedes
Another fairly comfortable second in the manufacturer’s championship, but fifth and sixth – half a minute from the front – was a soft result for Mercedes, given the proximity of George Russell to Pole.
This qualification pace, how Kimi Antonelli found himself in Russell (that Mercedes has a range of closer drivers than Ferrari or Red Bull is a huge tribute to his adolescent F1 novice), and the solid points are all positive. But it was a past race especially to derive back. – MB
Winner – Isack Hadjar
Hadjar clearly benefited from a favorable strategy and will know that two other positions could have been offered in terms of pure racing pace – but even it was another good positive performance.
It is undoubtedly less alone than in the broader context which forms around its 2025. Red Bull did not seem too sold on Hadjar leaving last year until the circumstances opened an additional seat, but five races, it shows that it is not an unpaid talent but can really be invoked at this level. – VK
