Oscar Piastri survived a late safety car to win his fifth race of 2025 and extend his championship lead to 10 points after an impressive drive in the Spanish Grand Prix.
Piastri drove a controlled race and never really looked challenged to re-gain most of the 10 points he lost to Monaco winner and teammate Lando Norris last weekend after finishing third on the streets of Monte Carlo.
“It’s a nice way to bounce back from Monaco,” said Piastri, who heads to Montreal and the Canadian Grand Prix in two weeks. “A great weekend overall, I think the pace was really good and we could turn it on when we needed to and I’m just really proud of the work we’ve done this weekend. This was exactly the kind of weekend I was looking for.”
The win gives Piastri 186 points to Norris’ 176, with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen third, on 137. Mercedes driver George Russell lies fourth, at 111, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc rounding out the top-five, at 94.
In the constructors, a McLaren 1-2 finish gave it 362 points and extended its lead to 197. At the same time, Ferrari overtook Mercedes and Red Bull in the standings after Spain, going from fourth before the race to second, with 165 points. Mercedes sits third, with 159, and Red Bull drops to fourth, with 144.
The race looked to be on its way to a ho-hum finish until Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli went off at Turn 10 on Lap 55, bringing out the safety car and setting up a six-lap sprint to the finish after the race went back to green.
While Norris hoped to use the safety car to leapfrog his teammate, it didn’t work out.
“I drove a really good race today but didn’t have the pace to match him [Piastri] but we gave it our best shot,” he said. “It’s a long race and anything could have happened at the end. It was good to finish 1-2.”
Nico Hulkenburg served up the surprise of the day, taking a top-five finish for Kick Sauber, jumping up to 11th in driver points and pushing his team up to eighth place in the constructors.
“Everything just clicked; I had a good start, mega first lap, made up a bunch of positions, which gave the foundation for the race,” he said. “Before the safety car, it was going to be P8, but obviously the safety car mixed up the race and being out in the first qualifying yesterday and having all new fresh tires was the golden ticket.”
The other big beneficiary of the safety car turned out to be Leclerc, who happily took an unexpected podium when Verstappen faltered on hard tires.
“When my engineer told me that Max was going on a new hard for the last stint – I don’t know if they had the choice or no choice, I guess they had no choice – I was obviously very optimistic because I knew how bad the hard was,” said Leclerc. “With the safety car, we got lucky and a podium, so I’m really happy with that.”
The late safety car saw Vertsappen take a new set of hard tires on Lap 56, while the two McLarens went for used softs. Verstappen questioned the move, with the team relaying that the hard tire was the only choice.
It all unraveled for the reigning world champion in the final six laps, with the Red Bull driver losing third to Leclerc after a bobble on the restart and some bumping on the start-finish straight. Then, he lost fourth to Mercedes’ George Russell after more contact in Turn 1 on the restart.
On top of that, he got slapped with a 10-second penalty for causing a collision, after being told to let Russell by after using the run-off to gain an advantage following the Turn 1 incident and then hitting the Mercedes driver when he tried to re-take the position. The penalty saw Verstappen end the day 10th after looking to be on his way to a podium finish.
For his part, Russell said he likely wouldn’t have anything to say to Verstappen about the incident.
“Look, that’s how Max goes racing,” he said. “From my side, I’m glad that I was able to finish the race. I’m not really sure what he was thinking because he lost himself and the team a lot of points, so no conversation really required.”
Piastri started on pole and kept the lead into Turn 1, but lost the lead to Verstappen after his first pit stop. The Red Bull driver pitted early for a second set of softs and then switched to a set of mediums on Lap 30, handing the lead to Piastri and second to Norris, who both pitted a lap apart for medium tires, with the former in on Lap 23 and the latter a lap earlier.
The McLaren pair stayed out front on their aging mediums, with Verstappen stopping again on Lap 48 for a set of softs and not losing third in the process. The McLarens pitted a lap apart again, starting with Norris on Lap 49, with Piastri keeping the lead until the safety car emerged and all the leaders pitted again to set up the final run to the checkered flag.
Canadian Lance Stroll pulled out of the race on Saturday evening after posting the 14th best time in qualifying; he could be on the sidelines for a few weeks after the team revealed an ongoing injury related to his biking accident two years ago. That could force the driver to miss his home race in two weeks.
“Over the course of the past six weeks Lance has been experiencing pain in his hand and wrist, which his medical consultant believes is in relation to the procedure he underwent in 2023,” an Aston Martin team statement read. “As a result, his medical team have confirmed that he will not race tomorrow and he will undergo a procedure to rectify these issues before focusing on his recovery.”
Stroll could not be replaced by the team’s reserve driver, Felipe Drugovich, because he withdrew after qualifying.
