Oscar Piastri withstood intense pressure from behind to take his second win of 2024 in an Azerbaijan Grand Prix that ended under a virtual safety car after a penultimate lap crash.
The Australian hounded early leader Charles Leclerc of Ferrari for the first 20 laps before using the long straight to get close and make a late braking move on the inside to get ahead. The roles reversed from there, with Leclerc glued to Piastri’s exhaust for most of the next 31 laps.
“We tried to get in front at the start of the race, but once I got out of DRS I didn’t have the pace — after the pit stop we were close again,” said Piastri. “After the stop, we were close again and I felt like we had a little bit of extra grip. I had to go for it because I knew that if I didn’t get past at the start of the stint, I was never going to get past. I went for a pretty big lunge but managed to pull it off and hang on for dear life for the next 30 laps.”
The race ended under a virtual safety car after Red Bull Racing’s Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz tangled on the penultimate lap while scrapping over third. In the end, Piastri crossed the line 10.910 seconds ahead of Leclerc, with Mercedes driver George Russell another 20.418 seconds back in third. McLaren’s Lando Norris was fourth, with championship leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull rounding out the top-five.
Piastri’s win, combined with Norris’ result, put McLaren atop the constructors standings for the first time in a decade, with its 476 points opening a 20-point gap to Red Bull Racing in second. Ferrari is third, with 425.
The last time McLaren topped the constructors standings was after the 2014 season opening Australian Grand Prix, where Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button finished second and third, respectively, and outscored the soon-to-be all-conquering Mercedes team.
For his part, Leclerc said that his race began to unravel after his pit stop, when he found that the set-up didn’t really work for the hard tires, which compromised his second half of the race.
“On the medium, we were very competitive and the car felt good, but on the hard tires, I was really struggling to heat the rears and, near the end, I really felt in one corner or two that I would put it in the wall,” he said. “I think McLaren had a little less downforce on the straight — they were very quick on the straights and in the corners we were quicker. I couldn’t get as close as I wanted and, to be honest, we lost the race because I didn’t defend as well as I could have.”
Meanwhile, Russell called his third-place finish a surprise after he drove through a shower of carbon fibre from the Sainz-Perez accident to end up on the last step of the podium.
“We had a really bad start to the race and I was dropping off, but on the hard tire, I think we were one of the quickest out there,” he said. “I passed Max and then got a bonus of being on the podium.”
Further down the order, Norris recovered from a 15th-place start after getting caught out by a yellow flag in qualifying. More importantly, he finished ahead of Verstappen to close the gap in the drivers standings to 59 points. Verstappen has 313 to Norris’ 254. Leclerc is third, with 235, and Piastri fourth, with 222.
“We got good points, fastest lap, and getting in front of Max was important to me and made me a bit happier after yesterday,” said Norris. “We are slowly catching but we need more but I think that can still come. There’s still 10 races to go and we are working well as a team. The car is performing well everywhere and that’s not something every team can say.”
