No one can stop him now. Oscar Piastri seems very much destined to earn his first F1 World Championship win this year, which began its half-way conclusion from Zandvoort. With his pole positions and his victory - despite the two Safety Cars that came in to break his pace - the Australian driver soars to 309 points against the 275 of his teammate, Lando Norris, now on the unlucky list.
Second, and never really able to challenge the driver from Melbourne, the Brit was stopped at lap 65 by an oil leak from his MCL39, dashing McLaren's hopes of another one-two finish. Enjoying this coup de théâtre were Max Verstappen, first and foremost, and an excellent and very solid Isack Hadjar. Fourth on the grid, the Racing Bulls driver steadfastly maintained the position he had gained and was further rewarded in the end, thanks to his opponent's withdrawl, sparking a celebration in an incredulous garage in Faenza that, on the eve of the Dutch GP, expected anything but a Top 3.
If one area of Emilia was celebrating, another, namely Maranello, wept. First, at lap 23, Lewis Hamilton was fooled by an asphalt that was made slippery by a light rain, and so he ended up crashing into the barriers at Turn 3. Then, in spite of himself, Charles Leclerc - who had already been involved in a contact with George Russell's Mercedes, fourth at the checkered flag - was forced to get out of his SF25 at lap 55 after Antonelli's error in judgment, which left him no chance.
And it was precisely Andrea who received a ten-second penalty for causing the collision with the Ferrarista. He later received an additional 5-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane, therefore, plummeting from the Top 10 into 16th place. Benefiting from all this chaos were: Alex Albon, 5th with the Williams; the two Haas cars that finished 6th with Oliver Bearman and 10th with Esteban Ocon; Lance Stroll's and Fernando Alonso' sAston Martins, respectively 7th and 8th; Yuki Tsunoda's Red Bull in 9th.
"I felt I had everything under control from the start, so I only pushed when necessary. The start of the weekend wasn't easy, so I'm happy with the finish. Great effort by the team. The road is still long, and I want to think about one race at a time," the winner said.
"It wasn't easy. I gave everything at the start to recuperate but, at turn two, I took a big risk because of the sand. It's still good to be on the podium," Mad Max commented.
"It's something unreal. The most surprising thing was to maintain the fourth position for the whole Grand Prix. I maximized when I had to and made no mistakes. In the end, Lando's bad luck helped me. The podium was my goal. It's just the first step," the French rider said in excitement at his first World Championship in the premier class.
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