Max Verstappen praised Oscar Piastri after the McLaren driver claimed the championship lead in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
Piastri scored his third grand prix victory of the season yesterday and moved 10 points clear of team mate Lando Norris at the top of the drivers’ standings. Verstappen is 12 points behind in third.
The Red Bull driver, who is seeking his fifth consecutive championship victory, said he is impressed with Piastri’s performance in his third season in F1.
“Last year was his second year, now he’s in his third year and he’s very solid. He’s very calm in his approach, and I like that. It shows on-track.
“He delivers when he has to, barely makes mistakes – and that’s what you need when you want to fight for a championship.”
Piastri is the first Australian to lead the world championship since his manager Mark Webber did 15 years ago. Webber led the 2010 standings with three rounds to go before falling to third place.
Verstappen said Piastri has benefited from Webber’s experience. “With Mark by his side, he’s helping him a lot, it’s great.
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“People learn from their own careers – that’s what I had with my dad and Mark is advising Oscar. At the end of the day, Oscar is using his talent, and that’s great to see.”
Piastri beat Verstappen to victory after the Red Bull driver was penalised for going off the track at the first corner to pass the McLaren. The pair were separated by less than three seconds at the finish.
Verstappen said he was encouraged by the performance of his car having finished only sixth in Bahrain a week earlier.
“I was very positively surprised, to be honest, because on Friday it was very, very tough,” he said. “It didn’t matter what I was doing in terms of driving, management, the tyres would just fall off.
“The car was a lot nicer [in the race]. Still limitations, but it was much more promising. And actually, at one point when I started to pull away again, I was quite positively surprised.”
But Verstappen, who won the Japanese Grand Prix a week before Bahrain, said Red Bull’s performance in Jeddah doesn’t prove they’ll be able to consistently challenge McLaren.
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“We have to stay a little bit calm because this track doesn’t have a lot of deg[radation], and we know that when we go to tracks where there’s higher deg, we just struggle more,” he said. “We still need to work on that.
“But the changes that we made already yesterday also worked for today. So I’m very pleased with that.”
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