Image obtained from Autosport.com
Is Piastri now the early title favourite?
Piastri has now won three of the first five races and leads the championship heading to Miami. Ever since coming into F1 Piastri has impressed me with his cool head and typical Aussie laid back attitude. Nothing seems to break his stride and cause him to lose his cool. Ultimately this race was decided by the penalty Verstappen received for the turn 1 incident, Piastri did what was needed to make sure he took the lead when Verstappen pitted and then never really looked troubled, he even managed to pull of an amazing overtake on Lewis Hamilton. It’s this ability to keep calm that for me puts him at the front of the contenders for the title. He’s in the fastest car (for now) and for the moment he has the upper hand on his teammate, who looks to be having a mental crisis.
Norris produces a great recovery drive amid mental turmoil.
After a qualifying crash which meant he would start in 10th Norris produced a great drive that saw him only just miss out on a podium position. He had some great battles on track, although he probably lost too much time behind Hamilton, I personally think the thing that cost him a podium was Leclerc going longer on the medium tyres than anyone else meaning his tyre “offset” wasn’t as big vs the other drivers that pitted earlier.
He drops to second in the championship and now needs to use the break until Miami to reset and try to figure out how he can prepare better mentally and become stronger. There is still a long way to go in this championship, but I am confident he can bounce back. He will hopefully be buoyed that Miami was where he got his first win last season, and the McLaren should be good. He has the speed and the pace, he just needs to iron out the small mistakes he has made the last couple of races. I do think however he still needs to look at who he is surrounding himself with and potentially make some changes there for people who are going to help him grow stronger mentally. I don’t think I have seen such a talented quick driver question their ability so often.
Turmoil at Red Bull, What Turmoil?
A week on from the reported crisis at Red Bull, Verstappen once again showed his class by sticking the RB on pole. Had he not had the first corner incident, he could well have won the race, although I do think Piastri had enough to keep him at bay. The Red Bull car is obviously a tricky beast to tame, but it clearly isn’t terrible. Tsunoda made it into Q3 which was the first time both Red Bulls made it into Q3 for some time and Bahrain aside, they have still been regular challengers to McLaren.
I must mention the first corner incident and resulting penalty. I do think Max was at fault and I think the penalty he received was quite lenient. I will say at this point I have never agreed with the 5 second penalty because if you have the car underneath you, you can negate that quite easily. There were a couple of examples of similar moves into turn one that didn’t result in a driver going straight on to keep the place. The problem with Max is he will not yield the position, now in this instance some drivers pull out of the move and let him stay ahead because they are worried at getting a penalty or worse, crashing. Piastri clearly isn’t one of those drivers and Max appears he may have met his match in that instance.
For me with the first corner incident, the fact is, if there were grass or gravel in place instead of a tarmac run off, he wouldn’t be out there for risk of damaging the car. I am surprised they don’t do more to deter drivers from cutting the first corner by putting speed bumps or something down, like what they do at Monza. By having nothing there it encourages the driver that its ok to cut the corner. Max probably thought he would have the pace to pull away from Piastri in the clean air to negate the penalty, but on this occasion didn’t.
A round up of elsewhere
The largest talking point of the race was clearly the battle at the front. Elsewhere there was a bit of action but largely the top 10 finishers were the same top 10 as qualifying.
Mercedes appears to be quick in qualifying but struggle during the race. A quick word on Antonelli, he seems to be going about his job at Mercedes quietly and solidly although he hasn’t set the world alight yet and is being consistently outperformed by Russell. It’s good for Mercedes though because he’s picking up points and not smashing the car to bits, which is what I was worried about after his crash at Monza last season.
Hamilton continues to struggle to get the best out of his Ferrari. It’s always hard to be immediately quick in a new car and new team but I am surprised that he has struggled this much. I can see the relationship start to sour if he cannot get over this sooner rather than later. Hopefully some planned upgrades will help his cause.
Hadjar had another solid race scoring a point. He has shown that he can be consistent and quick. The VCARB car is clearly quicker over one lap than in the race, but he should be happy with his start in F1
Williams had a strong showing, scoring a double points finish with some great team work to keep Hadjar at bay. They already have more points this season than they scored for the entire of 2024 and it must be a small relief for them to not have to rebuild the car every week. They still look like the “best of the rest” and hopefully they can build on a solid start going forward.
Aston Martin are playing down the impact Adrian Newey will have this year and are saying that he is focusing on 2026 instead. Alonso has been suspiciously calm and collected, we have seen before when he is in a subpar car, he is not afraid to air his opinions, and this Aston Martin is not a good car. I suspect he is probably also focusing on 2026 and hoping Newey can produce a winner.
Alpine could have been on to score some decent points had Gasly not been taken out by Tsunoda. Doohan on the other hand is some way off his teammate. Rumour has it that he was going to be given 5 races before being evaluated, but that has changed slightly after his accident in Japan. I think time is starting to tick for him and if he doesn’t get closer to Gasly soon, he will be replaced before the summer break.
Results
| 1st | Oscar Piastri | 11th | Fernando Alonso |
| 2nd | Max Verstappen | 12th | Liam Lawson |
| 3rf | Charles Leclerc | 13th | Oliver Bearman |
| 4th | Lando Norris | 14th | Estaban Ocon |
| 5th | George Russell | 15th | Nico Hulkenberg |
| 6th | Kimi Antonelli | 16th | Lance Stroll |
| 7th | Lewis Hamilton | 17th | Jack Doohan |
| 8th | Carlos Sainz | 18th | Gabriel Bortoleto |
| 9th | Alex Albon | DNF | Yuki Tsunoda |
| 10th | Isack Hadjar | DIS | Pierre Gasly |
Race Rating: 5/10
What’s next?
A couple of weeks off which some of the drivers will need to refresh their mindset, but more importantly a couple of weeks off for the other team members that make it all happen. Miami is next.
Let me know what you think below:
The DRS Zone 
Leave a comment