Oscar Piastri led home Lando Norris for McLaren’s 50th 1-2 finish as the Australian took a commanding win in the second race of the season.

After bagging his first pole position for a grand prix, Piastri fended off his teammate and George Russell to hold the lead into the first corner and from there he never looked back, while Norris had a more difficult afternoon in the other Papaya car.

In an early statement performance, Piastri never looked like losing the lead as he held the race in a vice grip from start to finish.

Norris, the championship leader, got a great launch off the line and took second place from George Russell into turn one, before looking to get after Piastri in the lead.

The turbulent air meant Norris could not attack Piastri and towards the end of the race suffered a scare as the brake pedal went long and by the end of the race he limped home to just hold onto second place in front of Russell who secured another podium.

Max Verstappen grabbed fourth after overtaking Charles Leclerc’s damaged Ferrari in the later stages, despite showing little pace in the opening half of the race, a quality that could push him into championship contention should Red Bull find some pace.

The Scuderia duo found the flag in fifth and sixth but were later disqualified along with Pierre Gasly, resulting in another frustrating Sunday for the Tifosi. Leclerc was found to be underweight after the race with Gasly, whilst Hamilton’s skid block was worn fractionally too much.

These disqualifications promoted Esteban Ocon to P5 to score his and Haas’ first points of the season, and also gave strong results to Albon and Bearman in the midfield.

Lawson suffered another disappointing weekend, qualifying P20 and struggling to make any impression in the race. Rumours are already circling of an extremely early swap with Tsunoda. This would be hasty even by Red Bull’s standards but the often overlooked Japanese driver would relish the opportunity to drive a quicker car in his home race in two weeks time.

Elsewhere VCARB will be frustrated they didn’t capitalise on their pace to score any points after a failed attempt at a two-stop was scuppered by Tsunoda’s front wing breaking and a robust defence from Doohan on Hadjar.

The F1 circus will head to Suzuka in a fortnight as the rest of the pack attempt to close up to McLaren, who currently lead both championships.