Over the years, several Aussies in F1 have looked the part, some more than others. In the modern guise of the sport, some of them were predicted as possible future champions, the most recent being Daniel Ricciardo. But the sport moves forward at a dizzying speed. After all, it’s known as the sport that never sleeps. And so too, a new Aussie has come to the fore and has stamped his authority all over the 2025 F1 season. It’s easy to forget that this year marks only the third season that Oscar Piastri has been in the sport. And it’s easy to forget this because he is delivering stunning drives and conducting himself in a way that belies his only 51-race-old grand prix career.
Piastri delivered yet another flawless drive to win the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this past weekend. He missed out on pole to Max Verstappen by 0.010 of a second, but remained firmly as the favourite to win the race. This, while teammate Lando Norris made a critical error and crashed on his first flying lap of the Q3 session, which left him to start tenth. The start of the race was slightly contentious between Piastri and Verstappen as both felt that they had claimed turn one. As it were, race stewards felt Verstappen could have yielded and not taken to the run-off area of turn one. For his troubles, Verstappen received a 5-second time penalty. Uncharacteristically, Verstappen was tight-lipped post-race and said very little about the incident. His demeanour belied his feelings, though as clearly unhappy. Still, the Red Bull, again in the hands of Verstappen, seemed to come alive in the cooler conditions and also seemed to favour the high-speed nature of the Jeddah circuit. The second-place finish was not what Verstappen wanted, but it is a far cry from the struggles of Bahrain just one week ago.
Charles Leclerc brought his Ferrari home in third thanks to a brilliant opening stint on the medium tyre. This gave some indication that the team is moving in the right direction, at least from Leclerc’s perspective. Norris, running a long opening stint on the hard tyre, turned an impressive pace and recovered to fourth overall. However, questions are starting to emerge about Norris’s temperament under pressure. A mistake in both Bahrain and Saudi qualifying has now cost him the championship lead to his teammate. There is a long way to go in the season yet, but every mistake is amplified now, given that Norris is currently able to potentially win the championship. Heroics of days gone by that scored a podium here and a pole position there are now irrelevant. Now, the pressure is magnified and unrelenting, and so far, Norris has not stood up to be counted. Still, Norris has the talent and the time to turn it around.
Elsewhere, Russell had a difficult run on the hard tyre and finished a distant fifth ahead of his Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli in sixth. It was yet another unremarkable weekend for Lewis Hamilton, as his struggles continued in the Ferrari, which he brought home in seventh. Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon made it a double point scoring weekend for Williams with eighth and ninth, while rookie Isack Hadjar scored the final point in tenth. The race was briefly neutralised via the Safety Car for a crash on the opening lap involving Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly, which was nothing more than a typical first-lap racing incident.
As serenely as ever, Piastri completed an impeccable drive to take his third win of the season and with it a ten-point lead in the driver’s championship standings. In the history of F1, to date, there have been 781 drivers from 41 different countries, and most of them spent their careers chasing the kind of poise that Piastri already wears like a second skin. There is almost an inevitability to his presence, it isn’t flamboyant or desperate. Instead, it’s assured and efficient and unnervingly calm. He commands attention and does what needs to be done, flawlessly. It isn’t only talent, its temperament, and in Formula 1, that might be the rarest gift of all.
