Five winners and five losers from the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix

One driver signalled his arrival as an F1 world championship contender by turning into 2025’s first repeat winner on the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Following Suzuka’s snoozefest final day trip, F1 sparked again into life with a much more entertaining race beneath the lights in Bahrain.

A combined grid, completely different tyre methods, and a mid-race Security Automobile resulted in intrigue from begin to end, however there have been combined fortunes up and down the grid…

Winner – Oscar Piastri

A flawless drive from Oscar Piastri as he took a managed victory handy McLaren their first win on the dwelling race of their Bahraini principal shareholders.

Piastri dominated all through with a sometimes calm method and excellently managed a race restart regardless of being at a tyre drawback to Mercedes’ George Russell behind.

The win was by no means unsure for Piastri who has closed in on teammate Lando Norris on the earth championship.

Loser – Lando Norris

He might have come away from Bahrain having prolonged his championship lead, however Norris has misplaced vital momentum to his McLaren teammate.

Norris recovered nicely from a surprising qualifying to salvage third, but it surely was a removed from convincing show from a driver who has aspirations of profitable his maiden world title this yr.

A mistake-ridden, scrappy race featured some uncharacteristically sloppy racecraft from Norris, who blew his probability of overtaking Russell for what ought to have been a minimal goal of P2 given McLaren’s present tempo benefit.

Maybe extra worrying was Norris’s post-race admission that he’s “not snug” and “not comfortable” in McLaren’s MCL39.

Winner – George Russell

Regardless of his Mercedes affected by a plethora {of electrical} gremlins, Russell produced one other excellent drive to complete second and cut up the McLarens.

Russell was involved he wouldn’t be capable of make his gentle tyres final to the tip following a technique gamble that he felt was “audacious”, however the Briton remarkably nursed his tyres for 23 laps, in addition to brilliantly resisting late stress from Norris’s sooner McLaren.

Loser – Crimson Bull

Max Verstappen has misplaced floor and now slipped behind Piastri within the championship following an extremely robust weekend for Crimson Bull.

The four-time world champion at one level ran useless final and was sad all through Sunday’s race as he complained about his RB21 automobile and a normal lack of efficiency.

Crimson Bull’s pit cease issues – which included a malfunctioning exit gentle which hampered each drivers and a sluggish second cease for Verstappen – capped off what was a removed from acceptable weekend by the crew’s excessive requirements.

Winner – Pierre Gasly

If there was a ‘driver of the weekend’ vote it might certainly go to Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.

The Frenchman transformed his gorgeous qualifying lap into a robust seventh, having solely misplaced P6 to Verstappen on the ultimate lap after holding the Crimson Bull driver at bay for a lot of the latter phases. 

In any other case it was a faultless efficiency all weekend from Gasly, who extracted the utmost from his automobile to lastly get Alpine off the mark in 2025.

Loser – Kimi Antonelli

Kimi Antonelli as soon as once more demonstrated some sturdy racecraft however is finally a loser because of his slide out of the factors, having began Sunday’s grand grand prix in fifth.

The Italian teenager misplaced out as a result of Security Automobile timing which ruined what was trying like being a three-stop technique for Antonelli, and left him caught in an extended DRS practice outdoors of the factors in eleventh. 

A messy race total from Antonelli’s aspect of the Mercedes storage.

Winner – Yuki Tsunoda

Whereas it was a reasonably torrid weekend for Crimson Bull, Yuki Tsunoda may at the least declare some private satisfaction from making an encouraging step ahead in his adaptation to the RB21.

After being thrown in on the deep finish by Crimson Bull at Suzuka, Tsunoda fared significantly better in Bahrain, bagging each his first Q3 look (whereas getting inside respectable vary of Verstappen) and factors for the crew since his shock promotion simply three races into the season.

Loser – Liam Lawson

In distinction, the person Tsunoda changed at Crimson Bull, Liam Lawson, had a shocker.

Whereas it was unhealthy luck {that a} malfunctioning DRS led to Lawson’s Q1 elimination, he had a race to overlook and was comprehensively outperformed by teammate Isack Hadjar all weekend.

Getting a mixed 15-second time penalty for inflicting two separate collisions compounded a horrible race for Lawson, who was categorised sixteenth after a rival was disqualified.

Winner – Haas

Haas wouldn’t have been anticipating to attain factors with one automobile after a dreadful qualifying, so to finish up with each vehicles inside the highest 10 was an actual shock.

Esteban Ocon labored his means as much as eighth, whereas Oliver Bearman’s storming fightback from the very again of the grid to P10 demonstrated some spectacular race tempo from Haas, who leapfrog Williams into fifth within the constructors’ standings.

Loser – Aston Martin

Alarm bells must be ringing at Aston Martin after a very depressing weekend in Bahrain.

Aston Martin’s tempo was woeful in qualifying and issues have been even worse within the race, with a pitiful sixteenth and 18th on the street the most effective Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll may muster.