What we learned at the Bahrain Grand Prix

Concern at Red Bull, a new title favorite emerges, and more lessons from the Bahrain Grand Prix

There is no rest for the weary on the Formula 1 grid.

Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix was the second race in the season’s first triple-header, and the grid heads immediately to Jeddah for next weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

But before we can look ahead, it is time for one last look back at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Here are the lessons we learned over 57 laps in the desert.

Oscar Piastri makes his championship case

To hear the two McLaren drivers speak after the race, this is exactly where they expected to be when the season began: Sitting one-two in the Drivers’ Championship standings.

But the gap of just three points between leader Lando Norris, and second-place driver Oscar Piastri, might be smaller than even they expected.

That is the state of play after Piastri’s impressive performance in Bahrain, which saw him take pole position on Saturday and hardly put a foot wrong on Sunday en route to his win ahead of George Russell. While Norris deserves some credit for his recovery drive, reaching the podium with a third-place finish after starting sixth, Piastri became the first repeat winner of the 2025 season and is in excellent form as the season’s first triple-header draws to a close next week with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Piastri’s near-perfect performance, coupled with what we saw from Norris, might make him the favorite for the Drivers’ Championship at the moment.

But there is a long way to go until a title is decided.

Lando Norris recovers, but as only he can

Shortly after the lights went out in Bahrain there was Norris, rocketing up to fourth after the start and then snatching P3 away from Charles Leclerc, all before the first lap even ended:

That start had many, this author included, wondering if Norris was going to deliver a dream performance under the light in Bahrain.

Then, word emerged that Norris was being investigated for a false start and soon thereafter, replays confirmed that the McLaren driver was not inside his box on the grid when the lights went out, and he was given a five-second penalty.

That forced the team’s hand, and McLaren called him into the pits early on Lap 10 so he could serve his penalty. That left him vulnerable later in the race to a subsequent challenge from Leclerc, who got by him on Lap 25 on fresher tires.

Eventually, relief came in the form of a safety car, which came out when a collision between Yuki Tsunoda and Carlos Sainz Jr. left debris on the track. That allowed Norris, and other leaders, to dive back into the pits and the McLaren driver emerged on a fresh set of mediums. He quickly engaged in a battle with Lewis Hamilton for P4, making an overtake stick at one point before being told to give the place back as he had left the track during the maneuver. Norris finally got around Hamilton, and then his teammate Leclerc, to settle into P3.

But he perhaps summed up his race best as follows: “Every time I did something good I did two bad.”

On the one hand, Norris did well to recover for a podium finish after starting sixth. He has secured a podium finish in every Grand Prix this season. Those are the kinds of results that can win you a championship.

However, he settled for third on a week where he was one of the leaders for the win, given what he showed in practice and given the strength of the MCL39. Even his tremendous start, which looked to put him in contention for the win, was undone by his false start penalty which altered the plan the team had when the race began. Those are the kinds of results that can cost you a championship.

Concerns at Red Bull

With Yuki Tsunoda finishing in the top ten he not only achieved his first points result with Red Bull, he gave the team their first double-points result since the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Read that sentence again.

Even their result Sunday was more of a disappointment than anything else. Max Verstappen was left fighting for fifth in the closing laps and lamented how “everything went wrong” when speaking with the media following the race. Verstappen was undone by some mistakes in the pits, and a stint on the hards proved difficult for the defending Drivers’ champion.

Red Bull senior figure Helmut Marko was once again sounding the alarm following the race, but that came following what Autosport described as an “impromptu” set of talks among senior management to figure out the next steps for the team.

“It’s a very difficult day for Red Bull, that’s obvious to all of us,” said Marko in Bahrain.

“We have to get, as soon as possible, performance in the car again and also standards like a pitstop have to work. The car is not the fastest and then the pitstops are not working. That is not acceptable.”

Marko noted that upgrades are coming for the RB21 and that he hopes they bring improvement. However, the team has a “lot of problems” at the moment.

“Very alarming. We know that we are not competitive and there will be parts coming in the coming races and hopefully they bring improvement,” said Marko.

“We have a lot of problems. The main problem is balance and grip. And out of this, so I guess the problems with the brakes came up. And then the normal procedure like a pitstop is not working, so one [issue] comes after the other.”

Whether Red Bull figures these problems out in time to salvage their championship hopes remains to be seen, but the performance they put in on Sunday is not the kind of weekend that keeps you in contention into the fall.

Haas takes the lead in the midfield fight

As noted above, with both Verstappen and Tsunoda finishing in the points Red Bull secured their first double-points result of the season.

At the same time, Haas was securing their second such result.

After a disastrous Saturday saw Esteban Ocon crash early in Q2 and Oliver Bearman eliminated in Q1, Haas had both drivers at or near the back of the grid when the lights went out. Ocon started in P14, while Bearman was at the back of the grid, dead last.

When the dust settled both drivers were in the top ten, with Ocon finishing eighth and Bearman tenth. They were able to take advantage of the safety car, as Ocon stayed out to gain valuable track position while Bearman pitted for a fresh set of softs, which he put to use to hold off Kimi Antonelli and Alex Albon for the final spot in the points.

“What a day. I’m very happy, especially after the disappointment of yesterday – nobody gave up,” said Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu following the race. “We knew what we had to do today, we knew we had pace in the car and two drivers who can deliver results. We weren’t dreaming of a double-points finish but honestly, the way we ran the race, how the drivers drove, we had conviction, and we were proactive – we weren’t afraid of anything.

“I’m really happy to see how everyone is reacting to disappointment – it’s racing, so there’s going to be highs and lows. It’s easy to ride the highs, but not easy to overcome the lows and put a performance like this in. It was another amazing team effort.”

The results moved Haas to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship chase, putting them one point ahead of Williams and at the front of the battle for the midfield.

Pierre Gasly breaks through for Alpine

Last season, Alpine broke through with their first points at the Miami Grand Prix, when Esteban Ocon finished tenth in the Miami Grand Prix.

They did not need to wait as long this season.

While they entered the Bahrain Grand Prix as the only team yet to score points this season, Saturday’s qualifying results gave Alpine a very good chance at securing a result, as Pierre Gasly stormed into Q3 and started the race fourth after a one-place grid penalty was handed down to Kimi Antonelli. As for Jack Doohan, he turned in the best qualifying session of his F1 career, as he narrowly missed out on Q3 by 0.017 seconds, and started 11th.

While Doohan could not charge into the points, Gasly finished seventh, just missing out on sixth as he came out on the losing end of a battle with Verstappen on the final lap. Still, it was a much-needed result for the Enstone-based team.

“I am very happy for the entire team that we scored our first points of the season in seventh place,” said Gasly in the team’s post-race report. “We lost a position on the last lap to Max [Verstappen] so that is a little disappointing but he won last week so we can really only take the positives from that effort. It was a good start from fourth on the grid and we stayed in the front pack on the first stint. We were a little unfortunate with the timing of the Safety Car after our second stop for Hard tires. From there it was flat out to the end, just trying to keep Max behind, and we just ran out of tires to lose the position.”

Gasly believes the layout in Saudi Arabia could mean another positive result for the team next weekend.

“Now we focus straight on Jeddah where hopefully we can be competitive,” added Gasly. “The car feels good in high-speed corners, I was impressed with how it performed here, so hopefully the same again in Saudi Arabia next weekend and we can repeat our level of competitiveness.”

A path forward emerges for Ferrari

Two drivers were left dejected on Saturday after qualifying: Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton.

Both found a reason to celebrate on Sunday.

While Norris stormed to a podium result, Hamilton worked his way up the grid for a fifth-place finish, his best Grand Prix result since joining Ferrari. With Charles Leclerc finishing in fourth, it was the best Grand Prix result for the team this season.

Speaking after the race, Hamilton discussed how much he learned about the car from Saturday to Sunday, which bodes well for Ferrari’s path forward.

“I learned a lot today, and as I saw, that middle stint I was really in line with the car and I had the pace and I was moving forwards,” Hamilton said after the race. “I need that at the beginning and the end and I need that in Qualifying so I know what to search for now.

“The car is sometimes quite hard to drive and I’m really working hard to adapt my driving style so that’s really what I’ve got to do,” added Hamilton. “Also get the set-up where I need it, we got a much better set-up where I need it, we got a much better set-up where I moved to where Charles was and he didn’t move away from that all weekend.”

There are still some questions at Ferrari, starting with their decision to have both Leclerc and Hamilton start on the medium tires while everyone around them was on the softs, which made the beginning of their respective races tougher. And as Leclerc pointed out, they still need to find more pace from the SF-25.

But they are closing the gap, slowly but surely.

“We are where we are: McLaren is still a step ahead but we were fighting with them in the second stint and we have been able to fight with both Mercedes and Red Bulls,” said Team Principal Frederic Vasseur after the race. “We’ll keep working to be more competitive in the next races, starting in Saudi Arabia next week.”