02/09/2025 06:30
Oscar Piastri has now seized control of the 2025 F1 drivers'
championship following a commanding performance at the Dutch Grand
Prix. Although he was aided by team-mate Lando Norris's late engine
failure, Piastri had delivered a perfect performance at Zandvoort
and was set to increase his points lead to 16 over Norris.
Following Norris's DNF, that has ballooned to 34 points, but in
doing so, Piastri pulled off a grand chelem, the first of his grand
prix career. From pole position, he led all 72 laps on his route to
his seventh win of the season, and set the fastest lap of the race
- beating Norris by 0.108s. Piastri is the 27th different driver
to set a grand chelem in F1, with it being the 69th occurrence in
1,140 world championship grands prix. He is the first Australian
to set a grand chelem since Jack Brabham at the 1966 British GP, 59
years ago, with Brabham also setting another at the 1960 Belgian
GP. In both of those years, Brabham went on to win the drivers'
title, with Piastri now firm favourite to join three-time champion
Brabham and 1980 victor Alan Jones and become an Australian F1
champion. Remarkably, Piastri's grand chelem in the Netherlands
was also the first by a McLaren driver in over 27 years. That came
via Mika Hakkinen at the 1998 Monaco Grand Prix. The record for
grand chelems is currently held by Jim Clark with eight, with Lewis
Hamilton second on six, his last coming at the 2019 Abu Dhabi GP.
Max Verstappen has five, equal with Alberto Ascari and Michael
Schumacher, with Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc also having
one apiece. Prior to Piastri's effort, the last grand chelem was
Verstappen at the 2024 Bahrain GP.
