Oscar Piastri takes victory at the Dutch Grand Prix in shock finisher
Australian driver Oscar Piastri has taken out the biggest victory of his career so far, winning the Dutch Grand Prix
OSCAR PIASTRI HAS LEFT ZANDVOORT with the biggest win of his career so far. Starting from pole position with a lap record of 1:08.662, he controlled the Dutch Grand Prix from the start and never let go. Across 72 laps he led every restart, every sector, and took the fastest lap, 1:12.271 on lap 60, to complete a rare grand chelem.
The race itself was messy. To the point that, even before Piastri made it to the podium he had apologised to Norris for the fallout and chaos on the track.
Three safety cars disrupted the flow, one after Charles Leclerc lost the Ferrari at turn three. Each time, Piastri kept his nerve and rebuilt the gap. For McLaren, it looked like a one-two finish until lap 65 when Lando Norris’s car began pouring smoke from an oil leak. His retirement from second changed the shape of the afternoon. Max Verstappen moved up into second on home ground and Isack Hadjar, the Racing Bulls rookie, took his first podium in third. By the flag, Piastri’s win gave him a 34-point lead in the championship, a serious shift in momentum with nine rounds left.
Piastri remains calm and focused in the face of victory
For us, it was hard not to think back to July 2024, when our auto expert Noelle Faulkner interviewed Piastri for our Esquire Australia cover story. He was only just finding his place in Formula One, but had already shown the same qualities that defined this victory: calm, focused, unwilling to be rattled. At the time, he was still dealing with the fallout from the contract dispute between Alpine and McLaren, which he described as “bizarre and upsetting.” What stood out then was how steady he remained, unwilling to get drawn into the noise around him.
That’s what came through again at Zandvoort. The conditions, the interruptions, even the championship stakes – none of it was enough to throw him off the chase. The traits we saw in that early interview were apparent in plain sight on the track: a driver who doesn’t overreact, who stays measured when everything else turns chaotic. It’s the kind of composure that separates a quick driver from a title contender.
When we profiled him last year, the headline was clear enough: eyes on the prize. This weekend, he proved exactly why.
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