Oscar Piastri took victory at the F1 Bahrain GP after a straightforward race for the McLaren team. Starting from pole, the Australian’s lead was relatively unchallenged in the penalty-ridden race on Sunday. Piastri demonstrated dominant pace in every session, bar FP1, displaying his comfort in the McLaren car.
Great weekend overall despite difficult start in FP1
Finishing P10 in the first Friday practice session, the Australian driver began the weekend on the back foot, with lots of time to find in his MCL39. Piastri did exactly this, going fastest in FP2 just hours later, topping the timing sheets in FP3 and Qualifying on Saturday.
Piastri was quite happy with the pace he showed all weekend. In a post-race press conference, the driver stated that the poor track conditions in FP1 made the session not necessarily indicative of race pace.
“It’s been a great weekend from, maybe not FP1 because that was pretty diabolical for everyone, but FP2 onwards has been, yeah, very, very strong. And yeah, obviously I was happy after qualifying yesterday and I think that made quite a big difference today. So yeah, very, very pleased with how the weekend’s gone and happy to come away with another win.”
With this win in Bahrain, Piastri became the first driver to multiple two race wins at this point in the 2025 season after winning three weeks ago in Shanghai. Piastri shared that he is happy with his overall performance at this point of the season, especially this outing in Sakhir.
“I’ve been happy with how I’ve driven all season so far. Maybe not all the results have been exactly what I wanted, but I think this weekend has definitely been the result I wanted.”
Piastri has found his groove with the MCL39 car
Piastri’s lead was never in doubt in Sunday’s race, finishing over 15 seconds clear of the Mercedes of George Russell who finished P2. It is clear that the McLaren driver has been performing brilliantly due to his confidence behind the wheel.
Piastri talked about how comfortable he is in the car in his Bahrain GP post-race press conference.
“I’ve been proud of the job that I’ve been doing and very proud of the job the team’s done. Obviously, the car is in a great place, you know, still has its moments where it bites. But for a lot of the time, it’s, you know, an incredible car to drive and clearly very quick.
“I’ve been pretty happy with the car, to be honest. I think clearly it’s got a lot of pace. You know, we’ve kind of known from preseason testing that there’s some things that we wanted to iron out this weekend in what the car’s been able to do. And yeah, I think the team’s been doing a great job.”
Ongoing competition for the drivers championship between Piastri and Norris
The McLaren teammates hold the top two positions in the drivers championship, Piastri just three points behind teammate Lando Norris after the Bahrain GP. The pace of the McLaren car has projected them as the team to beat as both of their drivers have shown the markings of future champions.
When asked about the prospect of a title fight between him and Norris following the race, Piastri stated that the fight has been on since the beginning of the year: “I thought it started in Melbourne, to be honest.”
The question remains of whether or not the teammates will be able to both fight for the championship and work together effectively as teammates. Piastri believes that at this point they have succeeded in racing as a combined force while also achieving personal success so far this year.
“I feel like for the most part we’ve been able to do a good job with it. And, yeah, I mean, I think we’re in the positions we should be in.
“I think it’s going to be a tight battle. I think there is going to be other contenders. I think what we’ve kind of seen at the moment is, you know, we’ve not had kind of a consistent challenge week in, week out. It’s kind of been somebody different, which, you know, obviously from the championship point of view makes life difficult for others.
“I think as long as we have the best car, it’s going to be tight between Lando and I.”
