The 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix saw McLaren’s Oscar Piastri deliver a commanding performance, converting pole position into his second win of the season. It was an eventful race and strong showing from Piastri marking McLaren’s first-ever victory at this venue.
Bahrain’s abrasive surface and warmer-than-testing conditions favored a two-stop strategy, with Pirelli’s C1 (hard), C2 (medium), and C3 (soft) compounds in play. The intriguing pit stop strategies and tire choices added a lot of nail-biting trying to figure out who was on the right tire and when.
Win
WinA win for Oscar Piastri and McLaren! Piastri dominated from pole, managing tires and pace flawlessly to claim his second win of 2025. His clean start and strategic execution showcased championship potential, boosting McLaren’s Constructors’ lead. McLaren’s first win in Bahrain making their owners very happy.
George Russell’s second place was a career highlight, capitalizing on a strong start and defending against Norris’ late pressure. His pace kept Mercedes in the fight, despite a looming DRS infringement scare that could result in a penalty.
Pierre Gasly’s seventh place was a standout, leveraging a late medium-tire stint to overtake Ocon. His qualifying fifth translated into points, marking a return to points for Alpine after a tough start to the season. To be fair, Jack Doohan, his teammate, had a very good race too just missing out on the points as his tires faded late in the race.
Big win for Haas F1 with both cars into the points on the back of good tire strategy and good racing from Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman. A great run into the points for the team!
All is not lost wit Ferrari as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton brought it home in P4 and P5 respectively. You could argue that maybe they had the tire choice wrong but once they got on the Mediums on lap 18, they looked terrific! They managed to claw out a decent showing.
To be fair to Yuki Tsunoda, he brought it home int he points and that’s a good result for him given how difficult that car was for even Max to drive so good on Yuki for a points finish and that’s what he was targeting in the lead-up to the race.
Fail
FailMax Verstappen’s sixth place was a letdown for the championship contender. Red Bull’s lack of race pace and a suboptimal used-soft tire start left him unable to challenge the leaders, exposing early-season weaknesses.
Carlos Sainz looked better this weekend but the race turned ragged with some dodgy blocking that resulted in damage to his car and a retirement.
A fail for Liam Lawson who managed to score more penalties than places it seems.
Tough day for Aston Martin…full stop.
A fail for Red Bull who were off pace all weekend and the pit stops, usually on target for the team, were mired with a glitch in the system with the light gantry. Very poor performance from a world championship team and I am sure everyone at the team knows it.
WTH
WTHWhat was agoin on with all the electronics at this race? The timing tower wasn’t working, George Russell’s on-car electronics gave up the ghost and there were all kinds of electronic gremlins all evening. Kudos to the F1 team for trying to keep all their fingers in the leaky dike holes. Wow!
Bahrain GP Results:
Pos | No | Driver | Car | Laps | Time/retired | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 81 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren Mercedes | 57 | 1:35:39.435 | 25 |
2 | 63 | George Russell | Mercedes | 57 | +15.499s | 18 |
3 | 4 | Lando Norris | McLaren Mercedes | 57 | +16.273s | 15 |
4 | 16 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 57 | +19.679s | 12 |
5 | 44 | Lewis Hamilton | Ferrari | 57 | +27.993s | 10 |
6 | 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 57 | +34.395s | 8 |
7 | 10 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine Renault | 57 | +36.002s | 6 |
8 | 31 | Esteban Ocon | Haas Ferrari | 57 | +44.244s | 4 |
9 | 22 | Yuki Tsunoda | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 57 | +45.061s | 2 |
10 | 87 | Oliver Bearman | Haas Ferrari | 57 | +47.594s | 1 |
11 | 12 | Kimi Antonelli | Mercedes | 57 | +48.016s | 0 |
12 | 23 | Alexander Albon | Williams Mercedes | 57 | +48.839s | 0 |
13 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg | Kick Sauber Ferrari | 57 | +53.472s | 0 |
14 | 6 | Isack Hadjar | Racing Bulls Honda RBPT | 57 | +56.314s | 0 |
15 | 7 | Jack Doohan | Alpine Renault | 57 | +57.806s | 0 |
16 | 14 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 57 | +60.340s | 0 |
17 | 30 | Liam Lawson | Racing Bulls Honda RBPT | 57 | +64.435s | 0 |
18 | 18 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 57 | +65.489s | 0 |
19 | 5 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Kick Sauber Ferrari | 57 | +66.872s | 0 |
NC | 55 | Carlos Sainz | Williams Mercedes | 45 | DNF | 0 |
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Random thoughts – 1) what a great field we have now. I remember a few years ago it seemed 50% has beens and the other half ludicrous pay drivers. Now we have some masters and all these likeable deeply talented young drivers. A bit corporate, sure, no real characters, but marvelous sportsmen most of them. 2) it seems when the red bull is lousy the 2 cars end up near each other, when it’s a threat for the win they’re miles apart. I guess that speaks to the ‘extreme max package’ theory of rb development. 3) i hate it when… Read more »
Regarding Max, it seems that RB has the car set up the same way that MERC did with Hamilton: Runs great … from the front. So long as Hamilton was leading after the first lap, the race was in the bag. RB seems to be the same way right now.
Seems like that’s what McLaren were saying last year that in clean air, they are fast but struggle in aero wash.