Five winners, five losers: Bahrain Grand Prix
- Peter Johnson
- 6 days ago
- 9 min read
Written by Peter Johnson, Edited by Sean McKean
Formula One was back to its thrilling best in Bahrain, but who had a weekend to celebrate and who didn’t?
Winner - Oscar Piastri
There are statement drives, then there is Oscar Piastri’s drive in Bahrain on Sunday. The young Australian was in scintillating form in Sakhir, taking the most dominant pole position of the season so far before driving off into the distance on race day.
While teammate Lando Norris (who made a strong case to be included as a “loser” this week) blundered from mistake to mistake, Piastri showed maturity beyond his years to suggest that he is more than ready to fight for the title than his more experienced colleague.
Piastri’s spin during the curtain-raising Australian Grand Prix is the only blot on an otherwise impeccable copybook so far this season, and while he still does not have the lead of the driver’s championship, he crucially appears to have ironed out his mistakes – unlike Norris.
Becoming the first driver to take multiple pole positions and wins this season, as well as being the first man to lead 100 laps, Piastri is clearly the in-form man in the early stages of 2025.
Furthermore, with four wins in his first 50 Grand Prix starts, no driver has made a better start to their Formula One career since a certain Sebastian Vettel, who won six of his first 50 races.
Winner - George Russell
With four top-five finishes – including three podiums – to start his season, George Russell surely could not have wished for a much better opening few races in 2025. Mercedes’ new team leader has been in exemplary form and is showing a level of consistency worthy of keeping him in the title fight, at the very least as an outsider.
Russell qualified second on Saturday with a superb final lap in Q3 but received a one-place grid penalty, for which he and his Mercedes team ought to share some responsibility. However, after passing Charles Leclerc at the start on Sunday, the Briton settled in for what seemed like an unchallenged cruise to another podium.
Issues began to creep in mid-race though, with Russell appearing almost at war with his car, surviving a number of technical gremlins while keeping Norris at bay in the closing laps. While he may not have had the raw pace of the McLaren, he displayed a higher amount of racecraft than his flustered compatriot to claim a thoroughly deserved second place.
In order to be a true title challenger this year, Russell may need to start challenging more earnestly for race wins over the next few rounds. He is arguably delivering the best and most consistent performances of his career to date, and it is now over to his team to help turn the car into a genuine race winner.
Winner - Pierre Gasly
Previously the only team yet to score a point in 2025, it was about time that Alpine showed some pace over a race weekend, and the team from Enstone could well have had a double-points finish to show for its efforts.
Jack Doohan was running in a solid ninth for much of proceedings and he could have claimed a much-needed first points finish of his career, if not for an unfortunately-timed safety car and subsequent penalty which dropped him to 15th.
Fortunately for Alpine, they still had the ever-dependable Pierre Gasly scrapping away towards the front. The Frenchman qualified in a remarkable fifth place, which became fourth after a penalty was applied to Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the Mercedes.
During Sunday’s race, after dropping behind Norris’ McLaren on the opening lap, Gasly ran a fairly comfortable fifth, before losing out to Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari. He did, however, remain a decent sixth, until the safety car bunched the pack up and left him vulnerable to Max Verstappen in the closing stages.
In a car that had not scored points all season and did not seem to have particularly great immediate prospects, Gasly drove the perfect weekend to claim six World Drivers’ Championship points and move Alpine above Sauber in the Constructors’ Championship.
Winner - Yuki Tsunoda
Perhaps a slightly left-field choice here, but on a weekend when Red Bull and Max Verstappen suffered one of their most frustrating weekends for many a season, Yuki Tsunoda rode the storm to deliver a very solid drive in the team’s second car. In fact, in claiming ninth place and two world championship points, Tsunoda achieved the best finish for a Red Bull second driver since Sergio Pérez at last year’s United States Grand Prix, some nine races and half a year ago.
Granted, the bar was set relatively low in terms of impressive performances from Red Bull’s second drivers, but in Bahrain the car looked arguably at its most undriveable ever – even at the hands of Verstappen – which surely gives extra kudos to Tsunoda.
While the Japanese driver has already “won” his battle with Liam Lawson for a Red Bull drive, he continues to strengthen his claim to the seat, having now scored points for both Red Bull and RB this season while Lawson is yet to do so for either.
Winner - Haas
Nothing encapsulates the incredibly tight nature of Formula One’s midfield battle this year than the consistently inconsistent results of Haas. Despite a rotten Australian Grand Prix and a mixed weekend in Japan, the team has claimed double-points finishes in both China and Bahrain.
Rookie Oliver Bearman now has three consecutive points finishes since his disaster Down Under, with his drive in Bahrain unquestionably the best of the lot. After qualifying 20th and last, the Briton made up five places in the opening two laps on Sunday and just kept climbing through the field. While Tsunoda, Doohan and Carlos Sainz were all in the wars around him, Bearman kept his nose clean to bring home a point, both unexpected and mightily impressive in equal measure.
Esteban Ocon, who crashed heavily in qualifying, was the beneficiary of a fantastic strategy call during the race, being one of the first runners to pit on Lap 9. Undercutting several drivers ahead of him, the Frenchman soon found himself in sixth and with easily enough speed to fend off Max Verstappen.
The Frenchman pitted again just a couple of laps before the safety car emerged, which saw him lose out to Gasly and eventually Verstappen, but still held on to a comfortable eighth place.
Haas now sits fifth in the Constructors’ Championship, having jumped Williams in Sakhir, and are firmly in the scrap to be crowned “best of the rest” this season.
Loser - Red Bull
Yuki Tsunoda’s points finish was a rare beacon of light in an otherwise wretched weekend for Red Bull. Max Verstappen was only able to qualify seventh on pure pace as the flaws in his once-dominant machinery were ruthlessly exposed.
During the race, Red Bull had at best the fourth-fastest car – albeit some way slower than the McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari – and at worst arguably the sixth-fastest, as Haas and Alpine both showed speed.
Once known for their blistering tyre changes, an unusual fault with the lights above the drivers’ heads in the pit box meant the team was unusually slow in that department too.
Helmut Marko recently fuelled speculation that Max Verstappen could be allowed and may even want to leave the team in light of their current performance, and there can be no bigger illustration of Red Bull’s current predicament than that.
Verstappen himself has often hinted that he does not plan to remain in Formula One for anywhere near the length of time of, say, Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton, and as the greatest driver of his generation, it is hard to envisage him hanging around at a team which he perceives to be in decline.
Red Bull are in a serious race against time not just to get their 2025 title hopes back on track, but maybe even their hopes for 2026 and beyond, which would look grave should Verstappen decide to up sticks.
Loser - Carlos Sainz
It is fair to say that Carlos Sainz has not really hit the ground running for his new team.
Williams’ marquee signing for 2025 still has only one point to his name, although he can consider himself unlucky not to have added to that tally in Bahrain.
Sainz sat in tenth place during the safety car period and had aspirations to move further through the pack once the race resumed. However, his car was badly damaged following an earlier collision with Yuki Tsunoda (which caused said safety car), and his afternoon was made even worse as he received a penalty for forcing Andrea Kimi Antonelli off the track.
The Spaniard retired from the Grand Prix soon after, rounding off a disappointing end to a race which just a handful of laps prior seemed to have so much potential.
Loser - Aston Martin
Two years ago, Aston Martin appeared at the season-opening race in Bahrain with an eye-openingly fast car, as Fernando Alonso danced from fifth place on the grid to third by the chequered flag. That day Lance Stroll also finished sixth in the sister car on pure pace.
Fastward to 2025 and Aston Martin’s slide has been so dramatic that Alonso and Stroll this time finished 16th and 18th respectively, again on pure pace.
2025 is arguably a season of transition for the team, who will begin to enjoy the true benefit of Adrian Newey’s design genius in 2026. However, at a time when teams such as Haas and Williams seem generally to be on an upward trajectory, Aston Martin has the air of a team that has lost its way.
How long it will be until the men in green can rediscover some form remains to be seen, but it is unlikely that owner Lawrence Stroll will tolerate too many more limp performances from the team he has invested so much money in.
Loser - Formula One’s timing graphics
The old cliché of “You don’t realise the value of something until it’s gone,” or a variation on that theme, is exactly how many Formula One fans felt about the timing graphics during the Bahrain Grand Prix.
George Russell’s transponder had rather well-documented issues, meaning he was rarely shown as running in second place, despite clear video evidence to the contrary. The television directors eventually decided to scrap the timing tower on the left-hand side of the screen, leaving viewers to guess what was happening in on-track battles that did not make it onto the broadcast.
It is not the first time this season that Formula One’s on-screen graphics have not worked as they should, and it does beg the question, given the scientific and technological prowess of the sport as a whole, how the information provided to fans during live sessions can be so unreliable.
Loser - The “Driver of the Day” award
Bahrain’s “Driver of the Day,” Lewis Hamilton, drove a very creditable race for Ferrari on Sunday, starting ninth after a self-confessed poor qualifying and recovering to fifth by the chequered flag.
However, it does seem a stretch to suggest that his drive was more impressive than Oscar Piastri’s emphatic victory or Oliver Bearman’s last-to-points heroics.
Since being introduced in 2016, the Driver of the Day award has been a bit of fun and has never been considered particularly prestigious. However, the identity of several of its recipients so far this season has really called into question what the point of it is at all.
Race winner Lando Norris was crowned Driver of the Day in Australia, before Kimi Antonelli was as surprised as anybody to pick up the award in China after driving from eighth to sixth. Yuki Tsunoda was then the shock recipient at his home race in Japan, when he qualified 14th and finished 12th on his Red Bull debut.
On Sunday Hamilton’s drive to fifth in Bahrain, while his best Grand Prix finish in red to date, did not exactly leap off the page when looking at the final classification.
Again, to most fans the Driver of the Day award is largely inconsequential and has no bearing on the overall fan experience. However, if you indulge in F1 Fantasy you may well be starting to become slightly annoyed at the fact that the driver who picks up the award receives bonus points in-game.
It is only a minor and often rather amusing subplot when a surprise Driver of the Day is announced, but the award is quickly becoming rather pointless and random in its application.
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