Piastri admits Saudi Arabia GP "was a struggle" at times with Verstappen's impressive pace behind

The Australian took his third win in five races to start the 2025 campaign very impressively, taking the world championship lead with his victory, tallying 98 points to sit ten points clear of teammate Lando Norris in P2, who is just two points ahead of Verstappen in third.

Verstappen's five-second time penalty during the Grand Prix for going off the track and gaining an advantage allowed Piastri to overtake the Dutchman in the stops, despite the Red Bull driver starting on pole. After that, the 24-year-old did not relinquish his lead.

But despite this penalty, Verstappen closed the gap towards Piastri as the race entered its final stages, showing that McLaren may not be as dominant as many expected.

"It wasn't the easiest of wins," Piastri started by saying in Sunday's post-race press conference in Jeddah.

McLaren's strongest point was always its strong tyre management, always succeeding with their second phase race pace compared to the other teams as their tyres wore out.

However, in Saudi Arabia, it became clear that this advantage had significantly diminished, with Verstappen's Red Bull able to keep up with Piastri, then having more pace than the Australian at several points during the race until the chequered flag fell.

The Australian questioned whether more speed was possible: “Maybe. I don't know how long I could've done that, but I felt like I was taking decent risks for the race. The last lap, obviously, I wanted to see exactly what I had, but there's not too much point in taking a crazy risk as well. So I think once we had some clean air, our pace was okay.

“But the end of the Medium stint, I had nothing for Max and it was a struggle. So I think the pace wasn't as much of an advantage as I wanted it to be, but it was good enough,” Piastri concluded.