Australian F1 driver Oscar Piastri wins his second Grand Prix

Australian Formula 1* driver Oscar Piastri has won his second ever Grand Prix* in an incredible, tyre-shredding victory.

The 23-year-old McLaren driver described his performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as the “best win of my career.”

Piastri overtook Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who had led most of the race, before sealing an impressive victory.

The Australian drove to perfection during the 51-lap race in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan*.

Piastri started second and ran in Leclerc’s wheel tracks in the opening laps.

As the first half wore on, the Australian slipped away from the pole sitter*, who was ahead by six seconds when he stopped for a pit stop* on Lap 16.

But Piastri managed to steal the lead shortly after by making a bold move as the pair entered Turn 1 on Lap 20.

“In the first stint*, when Charles was just pulling away pretty comfortably, I thought we were going to be second at best,” Piastri said.

“I saw an opportunity, or half an opportunity, after the pit stop and knew I had to try and take it.”

Both Piastri and Leclerc had started on medium tyres before swapping onto the harder tyres, which neither had tried out during practice.

Piastri burnt a lot of rubber* in the first part of the race by trying to get ahead of Leclerc.

Engineer Tom Stallard warned him to be more careful during the second stint.

“I felt a bit sorry for my race engineer, because I basically tried to (pass Leclerc) in the first stint and completely cooked* my tyres,” Piastri said.

“So my engineer came on the radio and said, ‘Let’s not do that again’, basically, and I completely ignored him.”

Given his inability to pass Leclerc in the opening stint, Piastri believed the halfway mark was his only opportunity to take the lead.

“If I didn’t take that opportunity, then I was never going to have another one,” he said.

“It was a high risk, high commitment move, but that’s what I needed to do to try and win the race, because, you know, I wasn’t really going to be that keen to finish second.”

Once in the lead, Piastri could manage the race, but Leclerc remained a threat until the final laps.

It was only then, when the Ferrari driver’s tyres cried* enough, that Piastri had any respite*.

He drove defensively*, making sure he remained just clear of Leclerc despite the Ferrari driver being within DRS range* most of the time.

“I knew that getting into the lead was going to be let’s say 40 per cent of the job, but I knew that hanging onto it was going to be 60 per cent,” he said.

“I knew that I’d used the tyres pretty heavily to try and get in front and I knew what kind of impact that had in the first stint.

“Trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly stressful, I couldn’t make a single mistake,” he added.

“I made a couple but at a track like Baku*, it’s impossible to be driving flat out and not make any.

“I was just fortunate that they weren’t big enough that it cost me.

“So, yeah, just the whole 30 laps where I was trying to keep Charles behind was incredibly, incredibly tough.”

The final minutes of the race were a reminder of the dangers of F1.

The race ended in wild scenes after Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz crashed two laps from the end.

Just as Piastri had broken free from Leclerc’s chase, Sainz managed to speed his way into third position, pushing Perez out of the top three. As Perez tried to regain his spot, their vehicles touched and they both crashed, putting them out of the race completely. Luckily, neither were badly injured.

Here are the top 10 drivers at this year’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Azerbaijan Grand Prix result

1. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

2. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

3. George Russell (Mercedes)

4. Lando Norris (McLaren)

5. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

6. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)

7. Alexander Albon (Williams)

8. Franco Colapinto (Williams)

9. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

10. Oliver Bearman (Haas)

POLL

GLOSSARY

• Formula 1: the highest class of international car racing for single seated, open wheel formula racing cars
• Grand Prix: car racing of Formula 1 cars on closed highways or courses that simulate road conditions
• Azerbaijan: a country that used to be part of the (now disbanded) Soviet Union, situated south of Russia and north of Iran. Its capital Baku is famous for its medieval walled inner city, which features the 15th century royal retreat, the Palace of the Shirvanshahs
• pole sitter: the driver that has qualified to start the race in pole position, at the front of the starting grid, by completing the fastest lap in the third part of qualifying
• pit stop: when the river pulls over for mechanical work during the race and a team of mechanics repair any damaged parts of the vehicle, including changing the tyres, in extreme speed so that the driver can get back on the racecourse as soon as possible
• first stint: first part of the race
• rubber: tyres, burning rubber is slang for wearing away the tyres by driving very erratically
• cooked: destroyed or wore away
• tyres cried: tyres screeched from having too much strain out on them
• respite: break
• defensively: defending his position in first place
• DRS range: the Drag Reduction System is a tool that enables drivers to overtake each other more easily and quickly
• Baku: the capital of Azerbaijan, and the city where the Grand Prix course was set out

EXTRA READING
Youngest Aussie to win Grand Prix
F1 has new Aussie kid on the grid
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QUICK QUIZ
1. How old is Piastri?
2. Which team does he race for?
3. How did he get ahead in the race?
4. Who crashed at the Grand Prix?
5. How many laps did the drivers have to race?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Race engineering
As you can see from the article, Formula 1 racing involves a lot of engineering as well as skill to win a race.

What do you think the difference is between the medium and hard tyres that Piastri swapped in his car?

How do cars ‘burn a lot of rubber’?

What does Piastri mean when he says he completely cooked his tyres?

What other engineering features do race cars have that you know of?

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Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Design and Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
What would be the career path to be a Formula 1 race car driver?

What sort of fitness would you need to be a Formula 1 driver?

Do you think this would be a good career? Why or why not?

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Let’s practise taking notes
When note-taking, we want to be able to extract the key pieces of information from the text or presentation. You start with determining the main idea: if you had to explain to someone in a sentence what the article is about, what would you say?

Then back up the main idea with two to four key points to support what you first stated.

What would you put as the main idea and supporting points to back up this article?

Once you have had a go at note-taking.

Share your results with a peer to see if you identified the same information or different.

Discuss the finding if you came up with different information.