A last-gasp move at the final corner, a sprint to the chequered flag, a photo finish: It would be great to see more grands prix finish that way.
That did happen on Sunday, but as it decided who occupied the final two places in the finishing order instead of the winner, it was widely overlooked.Jack Doohan caught 17th-placed Gabriel Bortoleto as the final laps counted down. Both drivers had changed tyres on the first lap of the race, but Doohan made a second pit stop while Bortoleto plugged away on his old rubber.
Doohan took 14 seconds out of Bortoleto in four laps to arrive on his tail at the final corner. The Sauber was powerless to resist, and Doohan beat him to the line by 0.042 seconds.
Up at the sharp end, Oscar Piastri beat Max Verstappen to the line by 2.8 seconds for his third grand prix victory of the season. It means he now has as many career wins as his team mate Lando Norris – this time last year both were yet to win their first grand prix.
Piastri’s win also propels him to the top of the championship table, overtaking Norris. He is the first driver to take the points lead off his team mate since Lewis Hamilton passed Valtteri Bottas at the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix.
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The Melburnian is the first Australian driver to lead the world championship since Mark Webber after the 2010 Japanese Grand Prix. Webber is now Piastri’s manager.
Max Verstappen claimed pole position with a record-breaking lap of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, and continued Red Bull’s run of four consecutive poles at this track. He has an excellent record of converting pole positions to victories, with 33 wins from 42 poles. However he has found it increasingly difficult to keep up that rate: his last eight pole positions have yielded four wins.
Charles Leclerc joined them on the podium, giving Ferrari their first rostrum appearance this year. Norris chased him to the line for fourth and picked up his 15th fastest lap as he did. He now has as many as Jackie Stewart, Clay Regazzoni and Felipe Massa.
Aston Martin had little to cheer about in their 100th grand prix. Fernando Alonso’s point-less start to the season continued and Lance Stroll dropped out in Q1 for the third time this year. That was Stroll’s 75th Q1 elimination, which is the most of any F1 driver, surpassing the record held by Kevin Magnussen.
Stroll is also one of only two drivers to have entered all five races at this track but never scored a point. The other is Yuki Tsunoda, who crashed on the first lap on Sunday. That was at least better than his 2022 appearance when his AlphaTauri broke down before the start.
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Over to you
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
- Red Bull made tactical decision not to avoid a penalty in Jeddah, Horner confirms
- Norris’s starts were far poorer than Verstappen’s but the balance is shifting
- McLaren’s rivals “just one upgrade away from being the lead car” – Brown
- Russell told race control what he thought of Verstappen’s first lap corner cut
- Doohan’s final corner pass on Bortoleto was F1’s closest fight for last place in seven years
Andy (@andycz)
23rd April 2025, 7:44
Leclerc has now the same amount of podiums for Ferrari (44) as Alonso.
Jere (@jerejj)
23rd April 2025, 7:50
Oscar Piastri took the championship lead for the first time in his F1 career & consequently, he’s on his first winning streak.
Pierre Gasly’s second consecutive Saudi Arabian GP retirement & coincidently also on the opening lap, albeit earlier, as he more precisely retired from the opening lap into the pit lane in last year’s edition.
Gabriel Bortoleto finished last for the second consecutive race & second overall in his thus far short F1 career.
Esteban Ocon was the last to finish a race on the lead lap for the first time since the most recent Austrian GP, in which he finished a position higher.
However, this time around he crossed the timing line to start the 50th & final lap by a mere 2.7 seconds before the race-winning timing line crossing, so roughly 1.5 seconds of margin to the blue-flagging limit.
As for some extra mentions regarding two already-mentioned stats:
While I noticed Jack Doohan’s unseen late pass on him happening on the live timing, I failed to realize where on track it precisely happened & mistook a different pass happening in the T1-2 combo as that.
The fact that Mark Webber used to be the most recent Aussie to lead the championship rather than Daniel Ricciardo speaks volumes to some extent.
Lance Stroll’s record-breaking Q1 elimination amount is not only one of many undesired records but also note-worthy, given the team in which he’s competed for most of his F1 career.
Ultimately, he couldn’t have pointed out the matter better by saying that suffering a lot of Q1 eliminations is mostly a car-dependent thing & even referring to the current McLaren drivers that they’d reach this record just as equally if they drove for the current/recent past-level Sauber for 10 seasons.
Simon
23rd April 2025, 18:12
Still. No. Original. Source. Credit.
Jere (@jerejj)
23rd April 2025, 20:25
You’re the only one who cares in the first place, hence, you should make the same point to statsF1fan & another user with similar posts for stat articles.
Besides, who could I even credit when I come up with stuff myself for the most part.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th April 2025, 22:16
Grammar-wise, putting a period sign after every word is wrong, on top of that you know it’s bad when I’m able to guess there will be this post from you and with pretty much this kind of comment as soon as I open the article and see a comment by jere.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th April 2025, 22:18
Check statsfan’s post at the bottom of the page, your comment applies to him too, but you specifically post it on jere’s comment, that seems evidence of bias.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
24th April 2025, 22:25
As for the webber vs ricciardo stat, I think it speaks volume on the car they had, it wasn’t very realistic for ricciardo to get the championship lead with the red bulls he drove.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
23rd April 2025, 8:41
Don’t tell Liberty – they’ll be showing even more of the Battle For 19th (with crowd noise and shots of somebody in a Sauber cap) on TV.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
23rd April 2025, 19:26
I agree. I would like to see the top 10 cross the line instead of the crowd, pit, or winner shots. Plenty of time to show those shots before the top 3 park their cars at most tracks.
Jordi Casademunt (@casjo)
23rd April 2025, 12:22
If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time 2 drivers have led the championship for the first time in their careers since 2010.
Back then it was Webber and Vettel, so another 2 teammates, one of them being Australian who happens to be Piastri’s manager.
sumedh
23rd April 2025, 12:35
Most drivers get ejected out of F1 if they get eliminated in Q1 so many times. He doesn’t because his father owns the team.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
23rd April 2025, 20:27
First time both Red Bulls have started inside the top 8 since Azerbaijan 2024, which was also the previous time that Norris started lower than 6th. Both these races were won by Piastri from 2nd on the grid, with Norris finishing 4th and Verstappen’s team-mate crashing out.
Piastri has scored more points in the first 5 race weekends of 2025 than he managed in the whole of 2023.
Alonso has started every 2025 GP in either 12th or 13th.
Ferrari keep alive their record of at least 1 podium every year since 1981.
3rd consecutive race in which Piastri has climbed 1 place in the Drivers’ Championship standings.
Verstappen’s results in Jeddah: 2-1-2-1-2.
McLaren-backed drivers have scored podium finishes in Jeddah in each of F1, FE and F1 Academy in 2025.
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.
F1statsfan (@f1statsfan)
24th April 2025, 13:58
Max has overtaken Vettel for 2nd in the most points scored in their career.
* Max 3,111 in 214 races versus Vettel 3,098 in 299 races.
Obviously the current point scoring system heavily favours recent generation of drivers – of the current grid only 2 drivers were in F1 when a win was still 10 points – Alonso & Lewis
Piastri has won 5 races in the last 17 races and only in his 3rd season – but with age 24 he is already behind Verstappen and Vettel in terms of age of reaching 10 wins. He has till end of the season to win 5 more reasons to beat Alonso and till 25th of October (so Austin race) to beat Lewis.
Picasso 1.9D FTW (@picasso-19d-ftw)
25th April 2025, 7:21
Confused as to why my comments here two days ago just disappeared without a trace after a day waiting for approval
Mr Squiggle
25th April 2025, 13:59
Ok I’ll bite. Here is an observation.
Last Year, Max won the championship with 9 wins and 4 podiums.
In 2025, Oscar already has 3 wins and a 1 Podium. He could have Lando on the ropes by the summer break and might wrap this up as early as Singapore.