FIA post-race press conference – Saudi Arabia

1. Oscar Piastri (McLaren), 2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

TRACK INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by David Coulthard)

Q: Oscar Piastri, our new World Championship leader. Your fifth victory of [2025] around the fastest street circuit. Tell us your emotions right now.

Oscar PIASTRI: Looking for a couch, I think, is the answer. It was a pretty tough race. Very, very happy to have obviously won and, yeah, made the difference at the start. I made my case into Turn 1 and that was enough. It was really tricky to follow out there. I couldn’t really stay with Max at the end of the first stint, just chewed up my tyres and then the clean air was nice after the pit stop. So, great race. We did the parts we needed to right. Still need a bit more, I think. Max was a little bit too close for our liking, but a great race and a great weekend.

Q: Certainly a great start. You touched on that. Your launch was awesome. You had to go toe to toe – the first time that I recall you doing that with Max into Turn 1, and in the end, you stood your ground.

OP: Yeah, once I got on the inside, I wasn’t coming out of Turn 1 in second. So I tried my best. Obviously, the stewards had to get involved, but I thought I was plenty far enough up and in the end that’s what got me the race. So I’m very, very happy with all the work we’ve been doing in the starts. And, yeah, that’s what won us the race today.

Q: You say you want to go and find a couch. Again, explain to us just the physicality of this race. It’s such a fast circuit. You’ve got the heat. We know you’ve had some drink issues in the past — I should specify you’ve had drink bottle issues in the past! Did that work today and just how tough was this? Of your five victories, was this the toughest?

OP: Yeah, that was one of our biggest upgrades this week — the drink’s working! So, no, that was good. I got some fluids on board, which was nice, but it’s always a tough race around here. It’s a little bit later in the year this year as well, which I think made it a little bit warmer, a little bit more humid. And, yeah, definitely one of the toughest races I’ve had in my career. So glad that I could come out on top of it.

Q: Max, well, you were close, but it all went away on that run to the first corner or the run through the first corner. We have to start there. You were very clear on the radio that you thought the two cars were not going to make the turn. Stewards obviously saw it another way.

Max VERSTAPPEN: Yeah. I’m going keep it quite short. I just want to say a big thank you to the fans here in Jeddah. It’s been a great weekend. I love the track and, yeah, the rest is what it is. I’m looking forward to Miami. So I’ll see you there.

Q: Thank you, Max. Well, Charles, I expect you’re going to be a little bit happier with your third than Max is with his second. Your long stint was fantastic. It’s a little bit confusing from the outside. The pace wasn’t there in quali, but your race pace was incredibly strong.

Charles LECLERC: Yeah. It’s the way it is for now. Unfortunately, in qualifying, we don’t manage to extract more out of the car. I was extremely happy with the lap yesterday. I was very, very happy with the race today. I think we maximised absolutely everything. So, I’m very proud of what we’ve done. Now we just need to improve the car in order to be fighting a bit further.

Q: We heard also the interaction with your engineer, a little bit of tongue-in-cheek conversation as he was encouraging you along.

CL: Yeah, he was very chill. Bryan was very relaxed on the pit wall. For me, it was a little bit more intense inside the car, but, yeah. I mean, we have a very good relationship and I think that we can see it on track now and it shows results. So I’m really happy about this.

Q: Overall, you feel this was the maximum you could get this weekend?

CL: Yeah, by far. I never expected to finish here. Honestly, I thought that this race was about defending the cars behind, especially Kimi. So it was really good.

Q: So for Ferrari fans around the world, this is a race that never ends. It’s about upgrades. What is the next step forward for the team?

CL: Yeah, we need to keep pushing the maximum and, hopefully, upgrades are coming soon in order to improve the car. But thanks for the support.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Q: Oscar, very well done. The pace of the car looked awesome, and you drove a faultless race. What aspect of this win gives you the most satisfaction?

OP: I mean, the fact that I crossed the line first, to be honest. It wasn’t the easiest of wins. I think the start was tough, the first stint was tough behind Max. And then once I had some clean air, it was a bit easier to manage. But I still couldn’t afford to take my foot off the gas. It was a difficult race, and Max was quick behind me, so I had to keep pushing. And, yep, I think I could control it reasonably well, but it was a little bit tighter than I would have liked.

Q: Well, you say you could control it. You set your fastest lap of the race on the final lap. Does that suggest that you had more in the tank had you needed it?

OP: 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 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.

Q: Norris has just said in the pen that he thinks the Red Bull was the fastest car today. Do you agree with him?

OP: No. I think our car was still quicker. I think it was difficult to be in dirty air. Max was quicker than I expected for sure in the race. I thought over one lap it wasn’t a huge surprise to see Max quick, but in the race, I wasn’t expecting to struggle so much at the end of the Medium stint, that’s for sure. So clearly we’ve got some work to do. I think our car is still very good, but when you look at the layout here compared to Suzuka, it’s the most similar so far, and it’s been the two where Max and Red Bull have been closer. I think we still have an advantage. I don’t think it’s as big on surfaces like this and layouts like this, but we still have a very strong car at the moment.

Q: Now a key moment in the race came in the opening seconds. Can we just get your version of what happened both on the run down to Turn 1 and through Turns 1 and 2?

OP: I got a great launch and got myself alongside. And from that point, I knew that I obviously had to brake quite late, but I knew that I had enough of my car alongside to take the corner. We obviously both braked extremely late. For me, I braked as late as I could while staying on the track. And I think how it unfolded is how it should have been dealt with.

Q: And, Oscar, you’re now leading the world championship. You’re the hunted rather than the hunter. Does that change anything for you?

OP: No. I still want to go out and try and win every race I can. I was saying before, I’m not that bothered by the fact that I’m leading the championship, but I’m proud of the work and the reasons behind why we’re leading the championship. Melbourne wasn’t a great start to the year in terms of results. But from the moment I’ve hit the track this season, I felt like I’ve been in a good place. Leading the championship is a result of all the hard work we’ve done in the off-season, the hard work I’ve done personally, the hard work the team’s done. I’m more proud of all of those things than I am of the fact that I’m leading the championship because, ultimately, I want to be leading it after round 24, not round five.

Q: Thank you, Oscar. Max, let’s come to you now. Many congratulations. Another great race from you this evening. Given where the car was on Friday, how pleased are you with the turnaround that you and the team have made this weekend?

MV: Yeah. I was very positively surprised, to be honest, because on Friday, it was very, very tough. And 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. Still limitations, but it was much more promising. And actually, at one point when I started to pull away again, I was quite surprised, positively surprised. We have to stay a little bit calm because this track doesn’t have a lot of deg, and we know that when we go to tracks where there’s higher deg, we just struggle more. 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.

Q: McLaren had a second on the entire field on Friday. Just how close do you think you were to them today in terms of pace?

MV: I don’t know. It’s impossible to say. I also haven’t looked at numbers. For me, I was just positively surprised with my pace. It was much better than what I expected it to be. So that’s a good thing.

Q: Now, Max, you crossed the line 2.8 seconds behind Oscar. It begs the question of what might have been without that five-second penalty. Can you give us your take on what happened at the start?

MV: Yeah. Start happened, Turn 1 happened, and suddenly it was lap 50. It just all went super-fast. The problem is that I cannot share my opinion about it because I might get penalised also, so it’s better not to speak about it.

Q: Alright. Let’s not talk about the penalty. Can we just talk about the wheel-to-wheel racing between you and Oscar?

MV: It happened very fast.

Q: Did you and the team discuss giving the place back immediately?

MV: I think it’s better not to talk about it. Anything I say or try to say about it might get me in trouble.

Q: Okay. Let’s throw it forward then. What’s needed for you to get on a par with McLaren? Is it now just a case of finding some consistency from race to race? Is that what you want more than anything?

MV: I think we need to find more overall performance, balance especially, and of course consistency. We are not good at every track. That’s quite clear. Bahrain, we were lacking a lot. Here, for sure, it was a lot better. But like I said, it’s also very low deg and then more cars come alive. So we still have work to do, but at least it’s a promising result. Overall, it’s been a promising weekend, at the end of the day. We really managed to find a good balance or a decent balance, and that’s, of course, positive for us.

Q: Alright. Very well done. Thank you for that, Max. Charles, let’s come to you now. Max talks about it being a positive weekend for Red Bull. Do you feel the same about Ferrari’s weekend?

CL: Yes, I do. At least I feel like we’ve maximized absolutely everything we could have this weekend. There wasn’t anything more in the car. I think we need to focus on qualifying because it’s been a very long time I haven’t been as happy with the car balance. I feel very at ease with the car in a way that I know I can extract the maximum out of the car more often than not, but unfortunately, the car potential is just not good enough to fight for better in qualifying. In the race, the good car balance had results. We were all surprised by our pace in free air on the first stint. That was really good. Everything else was perfectly executed. Strategy was great. Pit stops have been great the whole season and also the whole of last year as well. There wasn’t much more we could have done.

Q: You extended your first stint longer than anyone else on the medium tyre. How much management did that take?

CL: A little. The car just felt good. To be honest, I was struggling a lot when I was behind George with the car balance – a lot of understeer – and I hate that. As soon as he pitted, the front came alive and the car felt a lot better. Then I could manage the fronts a little bit better, and the performance came much better once I was in free air.

Q: So do you think you now have the race pace to challenge for wins? All you’ve got to do is start higher up on the grid.

CL: I think we are close on the race pace. I think free air dictates a little bit who is going to win the race. That’s always been the case. Maybe this year a little bit more than other years. And obviously when that is the case, qualifying is more important. But unfortunately, for two years, we are just struggling in qualifying to put everything together. This weekend the problem is it’s not always the same issue. This time it was four tenths in the first three corners. For the rest of the lap, we were fast. And now today in the race, actually, the first sector was probably the best sector we had. So we’ve got to look at that. Obviously, there are answers in what we are doing, and we are doing something wrong, clearly. We’ve got to find it. We cannot lose too many races before finding it because we’re already 50 points down in the Drivers’ Championship. We’re not looking at it too much, but 50 points is a big number. I don’t want to be losing more points than that in the next few races.

QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

Q: (Samarth Kanal – The Race) Max, you’ve just finished second, you’re third in the championship and you’re not far off, but it kind of seems like you’re not in a mood to talk too much about what happened. All of this, is this still fun for you? Or has the enjoyment been sucked out in a certain way? Over the last few months, your answers have become a bit shorter, and you just don’t seem as happy.

MV: No. It has to do with social media in general, and how the world is. I prefer not to talk a lot because sometimes your words can be twisted or people interpret it in a different way. It’s honestly better not to say too much. So that’s what I’m trying to do.

Q: (Rawan Alkhamisi – Alsharq Alawasat) First of all, congratulations for you all, especially Oscar, you did a great job. It’s your first win in Saudi Arabia. How do you feel about that, being the fifth edition? And Charles, last year you were third at the same place and now you say you are near to the pace of other teams so do you think next year will be first place? Max, you said it’s a positive weekend – do you think you’re now closing the gap to McLaren?

OP: I’m happy to win anywhere and ideally everywhere we race, but it’s a track I’ve always enjoyed. Even going back to F2, it was a track I enjoyed a lot and had success at. It’s a cool circuit, rewards a lot of commitment, and it was nice to win today.

CL: I’m obviously looking forward to trying to win but sooner than next year. Next year is a long way away, and there will be new regulations and everything. It’s a bit too early to think about that. We’re pushing at maximum to close the gap as soon as possible and win races, but I wouldn’t want to wait for Jeddah next year to win.

MV: Yeah. I’ve got interesting results here. It’s been like second, first, second, first, second. It’s positive. It’s been a positive weekend for us, honestly. Maybe didn’t start off great on Friday, but we tried a lot of things on the car and got it in the window. From now on, we need to work more on our weaknesses that we know we have. We need to come with upgrades to fix that. Hopefully in the coming races we can see some progression.

Q: (Mark Mann-Bryans – Autosport) Another question for Max. Since maybe Singapore last year, it feels like you’ve had to bite your tongue a bit more. Does it frustrate you that you can’t be open and others maybe talk for you?

MV: Like I said before, it’s just the world we live in. You can’t share your opinion because it’s not appreciated apparently, or people can’t handle the full truth. Honestly, it’s better if I don’t say too much. It also saves my time because we already have to do so much. It’s honestly just how everything is becoming. Everyone is super sensitive about everything. And what we have currently, we cannot be critical anyway. So less talking – even better for me.

Q: (Luke Smith – The Athletic) Max, question for you about Oscar’s start to this season. This is the first time you’ve fought against him in a championship. What have you made of his start? How tough a competitor is he going to be for your crown is he going to be this season?

MV: I think I’ve said it before. People forget a little bit – 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. And I think with Mark by his side, he’s helping him a lot. It’s great. 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.

Q: (Luca Bassani – Car Magazine Brazil). Charles, during the end of the race, Lando had great pace. Did you fear he might take your position? And regarding Ferrari, how competitive do you feel the car will be over the rest of the season, especially at European tracks where you are more familiar with the tracks?

CL: I knew it was going to be tight. He was very quick. I wasn’t worried, but I knew it was going to be close. I didn’t know what to expect with the traffic. At one point, I had to avoid, I think, Bortoleto and I went in the marbles – lost a lot of time. Lando nearly got into my DRS range, which would’ve made it trickier to keep him behind. But he got stuck around 1.2, 1.3 seconds for the last few laps. I was happy to keep the position and to have the first podium of the season for the team. In terms of track familiarity, I don’t think it has any impact on performance at the moment. We just need a better car. If we start further up, we’ll have our chances. If not, we’re all too close in the race to make a difference. We really need to focus and put everything together in qualifying.

Q: (Samarth Kanal – The Race) Max, sorry to press, but for clarity’s sake… I know you probably don’t want to be sitting here after the race answering these questions but just for clarity, where is this ire directed? You say you’re not allowed to say what you want. Is this directed at the FIA swearing rules or something else?

MV: I know I cannot swear in here, but at the same time, you also can’t be critical in any form that might ‘harm’ or ‘danger’… Let me get the sheet out. There’s a lot of lines, you know? So that’s why it’s better not to talk about it – you can put yourself in trouble, and I don’t think anyone wants that.