Oscar Piastri lifts his trophy on the Bahrain Grand Prix podium.
Under the glare of the desert floodlights, a title fight that has been quietly smoldering since Melbourne has now erupted into an open flame. Oscar Piastri’s commanding victory in Sakhir has closed the gap to current championship leader Lando Norris, with the Australian trailing by just three points.
Piastri’s Victory
The Bahrain Grand Prix weekend saw Piastri in impeccable control. Methodical in qualifying, securing pole position on a track where tyre degradation is a priority. The race saw him with the same, ice-cold execution. While others juggled safety cars, strategy gambles, and crumbling tyre sets, the 24-year-old turned tactical advantage into a masterclass. McLaren played their hand smartly, saving a fresh set of medium tyres for the final stint, allowing the Australian to push in the final part of the race, clearing second-placed George Russell by 16 seconds. More importantly, Piastri was ahead of title rival Norris by nearly half a minute.
His season started on a rough note in Australia, where a late mistake on the wet track sent him sliding off, struggling to recover and tumbling down the order. What followed was a battle to salvage what he could, ultimately finishing P9 at the chequered flag. Arriving in China, he bounced back in style, converting pole into a dominant victory.
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said, “There’s no noise in Oscar’s head, which is a very useful characteristic in Formula 1, and I think this allows him to progress, to process information, to process what’s available in the situations as a way of improving himself at a very fast rate.”
Lando Norris secured third place at the Bahrain Grand Prix
Norris Struggles
For Lando Norris, Bahrain was a weekend to forget, riddled with penalties, missteps and missed chances. He qualified a muted sixth, more than four-tenths of a second off teammate Piastri.
“I’ve been off every lap this weekend, just not comfortable,” said Norris. “No big complaints, the car’s amazing…Just I’ve been off it all weekend”
“I just need a big reset, that’s all,” he added.
In the race, a false start off the grid box handed him a five-second penalty, setting the tone for the rest of the grand prix which was more firefighting than front-running. From there, it was damage limitation. The race was an uphill battle, his racecraft rough and at times futile. After multiple attempts at overtaking Leclerc around the outside of Turn 4 and lock-ups, he finally climbed to P3.
“Every time I did something good I did two bad,” said Norris after the race. In truth, second place may have been within reach, but with Piastri untouchable up front and George Russell driving the wheels off his Mercedes, Norris was left clinging to what he could get.
“Something’s just not clicking with me and the car. I’m not able to do any of the laps like I was doing last season,” said Norris. “Even in Australia, whether or not I won the race, I never felt comfortable, never felt confident.”
Despite the podium, it was clear: Norris is struggling. And while he remains atop the standings, the sense of control is slipping.
Max Verstappen
Verstappen’s Woes
Max Verstappen, so often the calm within the storm, found himself swallowed by the chaos in Bahrain. The Dutchamn endured a weekend that seemed to unravel corner by corner, pitstop by pitstop.
It began with balance issues–an RB21 that felt more like a puzzle than a partner. Verstappen couldn’t get it to rotate as he wanted, struggling to find grip or confidence. Then came the tyre degradation, worse than expected and worse than last year, leaving him to nurse worn rubber while watching rivals pull away.
But the real gut-punch came in the pits, where a rare malfunction in Red Bull’s traffic light release system left him stranded. The team initially believed it was human error. It wasn’t. A wiring issue in the gantry led to a manual override, costing him seconds at both stops. And then, insult to injury: a misfire from the right-front wheel gun on his second visit, turning what should’ve been a two-second stop into a 6.2-second stall.
Verstappen, who arrived in Sakhir fresh off a supreme win in Japan, could only manage sixth. For a man who measures races not just in results but in perfection, it was a bitter pill. “The big problem is the pace that we have,” said Verstappen. “I just feel like we are even worse on tyres somehow this year. Basically just very complicated.
“We’ve been struggling with two issues this weekend, one a braking issue, and secondly, just an imbalance,” said Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner. “When you have that then tyre deg, everything looks worse. On top of that, we’ve had a horrible day where we had what looks like a wiring loom issue in the pit gantry.”
Who Is In Contention?
We’re only four races into the season, but already, the title contention seems to shift with every round, and it could go beyond the top three. What looked like a straightforward title lead for Norris after Melbourne has now been complicated by a new constant — Oscar Piastri. Bahrain proved that the Australian has the capability of controlling weekends from start to finish.
As for Norris and Verstappen, their struggles in Sakhir highlighted just how unpredictable this title race could become. Whether it’s tyre deg, technical issues or driver errors, no one is immune — and that means consistency will be just as valuable as raw pace.
George Russell’s firepower and Ferrari’s flashes of brilliance are only adding to the chaos. If Bahrain is any indicator, this isn’t going to be a runaway championship. It’s a dogfight. And Piastri is right in the middle of it.
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