One driver arrived as a competitor for the Formula 1 World Championship by becoming the first repeat winner of 2025 at Bahrain Graampuri in 2025.
Following the last Suzuka Snooze Fest, F1 has returned to life with a much more interesting race under the lights of Bahrain.
Mixed grids, various tyre strategies, and race-middle safety cars brought plots from start to finish, but there was a mixed fate up and down the grid…
Winner – Oscar Piastri
On a perfect drive from Oscar Piastri, he took a controlled victory for McLaren to pass their first victory in the home race of their Bahrain major shareholders.
Piastri was generally dominated by a mild approach, and very managed the resumption of the race despite the tire disadvantages behind Mercedes’ George Russell.
For Piastri, who was trapped by his teammate Rand Norris at the World Championships, the victory was unquestionable.
Loser – Rand Norris
Oscar Piastri has surpassed Rand Norris once again
He may have left Bahrain, where he extended his championship lead, but Norris lost a lot of momentum in his McLaren teammate.
Norris recovered well to save third place from the shocking qualifying, but it was far from a compelling display from drivers hoping to win this year’s Maiden World title.
The misleading, crude race featured Norris’ characteristically sloppy racecraft. Norris blew away the chance to overtake Russell, considering McLaren’s current pace advantage, saying it should be the minimum target for P2.
Perhaps Norris’ post-race admission to “not comfortable” and “not happy” on McLaren’s MCL39 was more worried.
Winner – George Russell
Despite his Mercedes suffering from a ton of electric gremlins, Russell produced another great drive, ending the second and splitting the McLarens.
Russell was worried that he would not be able to carry on his soft tires to the end following the strategy gambling he felt was “bold”, but Britton was remarkably nursing his tires on 23 laps, brilliantly resisting Norris’ slow pressure from faster McLaren.
Loser – Red Bull
Red Bull
Max Verstappen lost the ground and slid behind Piastri at the championship after an incredibly tough weekend for Red Bull.
The four-time world champion at one point was dead at the end, and was unhappy throughout Sunday’s race.
The issue of pit stops on Red Bull – included malfunctions that hinder both drivers and a slow, second stop for Verstappen – closing off something far from an acceptable weekend by the team’s high standards.
Winner – Pierre Guthry
If there was a “weekend driver” vote, it would certainly go to Pierre Guthrie of Alpine.
The Frenchman only lost a P6 to Verstappen on the final lap after turning his stunning qualifying lap into a strong seventh, bringing the Red Bull drivers at bay in many of the latter stages.
Otherwise, it was a perfect performance throughout the weekend from Guthrie, who extracted the biggest from his car in 2025 and eventually extracted the biggest from his car.
Pierre Guthry
Loser – Some Antonelli
Kimi Antonelli once again demonstrated some strong racetracks, but ended up losing as he started the Grand Prix on Sunday in the fifth time.
The Italian teenager lost due to the timing of a safety car that ruined what looked like Antonelli’s three-stop strategy and was stuck on a long doctoral train outside the points on the 11th.
Overall messy race from Antoneri’s side of Mercedes garage.
Winner – Yuki Tsunoda
It was a rather passionate weekend for Red Bull, but Yuuzunoda was able to assert some degree of personal satisfaction, at least as he took a encouragemental step in his adaptation to RB21.
After being thrown into the deep edge by Suzuka’s Red Bull, the Zonodha has gotten much better in Bahrain, only three races in the season, both his first Q3 appearance (within the respectable range of Verstappen) and his team’s points since his shock promotion.
Loser – Liam Lawson
In contrast, the man Hornada, who was replaced by Liam Lawson’s Red Bull, was shocking.
It was unlucky that the broken DRS led to Lawson’s first quarter elimination, but he was in a competition to forget, and was comprehensively outformed by his teammate Isack Hadjar throughout the weekend.
Getting a total of 15 seconds of penalty to cause two separate conflicts exacerbated Lawson’s awful race, which was categorized as 16th after his rival was disqualified.
Liam Lawson
Winner – Haas
Both cars in the top 10 were really shocked as Haas wouldn’t have expected to score points with one car after the scary qualifying round.
Esteban Ocon worked to 8th, and Oliver Bareman’s Storm Storm Fightback from the back of the grid to P10 showed an impressive race pace from Haas, where Williams bouncing fifth in constructor standings.
Loser – Aston Martin
After a truly disastrous weekend in Bahrain, the alarm bell should be ringing at Aston Martin.
Aston Martin’s pace was miserable in qualifying, and things got worse in the race, with 16th and 18th on the road, the highest 16th place that Fernando Alonso and Lance’s walks could be called up.