Oscar Piastri scored a commanding victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix, delivering McLaren’s first victory in the race.
He came home 15 seconds ahead of George Russell, who had to cope with an unusual fault with his Drag Reduction System over the latter stages. He held off Lando Norris for third place, followed by the Ferrari drivers.
Piastri led the field away at the start while Russell took Leclerc for second. Norris also passed the Ferrari driver for third place in what looked at first like the culmination of a superb start.
However soon afterwards came word Norris had been given a five-second time penalty. Replays of the start showed his McLaren was not lined up correctly in its starting position. Norris therefore made an early first pit stop to get his penalty out of the way.
While Piastri continued to lead, Norris moved back into contention, briefly rising to third. However the Ferrari drivers ran long first stints which allowed Leclerc to attack and pass Norris for third.
The positions were reset when the Safety Car was deployed due to debris following contact between Carlos Sainz Jnr and Yuki Tsunoda. The leaders all took the opportunity to pit and the strategists were split over what was the best way to finish the race.
Leader Piastri took a set of mediums for the restart, but behind him Russell was on softs and Leclerc hards. They were followed by Norris and Hamilton on a set of mediums.
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Russell couldn’t do anything about Piastri at the restart, but Norris went after Leclerc, trying without success to claim the inside line for turn one. That opened the door for Hamilton, who took fourth off him. Norris repassed on the outside of turn four, but left the track as he did, and relinquished the place when his team advised him to. Norris went after Hamilton again and soon took fourth off him again.
Norris eventually passed Leclerc for third, then went off in pursuit of Russell. However his chances of passing the Mercedes driver were compromised as Russell was suffering an unusual timing problem which prevented his DRS detection gap being correctly judged. At one point the Mercedes driver used it when he shouldn’t have, prompting an investigation.
As Norris closed in, his race engineer advised him that Russell’s timing problem meant he would have to activate his DRS manually when he got within range. Despite applying stiff pressure to the Mercedes, he had to settle for third place, though it was enough to retain the championship lead.
Leclerc took fourth ahead of Hamilton. Max Verstappen took sixth place off Pierre Gasly, who nonetheless claimed Alpine’s first points of the season. Tsunoda scored his first points as a Red Bull driver in ninth ahead of Oliver Bearman.
This article will be updated.
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