Oscar Piastri scored his most emphatic victory to date in Bahrain, with his first ‘hat trick’ of pole position, fastest lap and victory.
He is the 49th driver in F1 history to achieve that feat. He also took the second pole position of his career, which made him the 75th multiple pole-winner in Formula 1 history.
On Sunday he claimed his fourth grand prix victory in his 50th start. He now has as many victories as Bruce McLaren – though the McLaren team founder only won once in his own car, taking his other three victories for Cooper. Piastri also draws level with his McLaren predecessor Carlos Sainz Jnr, plus Eddie Irvine and Dan Gurney.
This was McLaren’s third victory in the first four grands prix of the season – two for Piastri and one for Lando Norris in the opening round at Melbourne. It’s their best start to a championship since 1998, when Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard won three races between them in the MP4-13. Until last year, that season was the most recent occasion on which McLaren won the constructors’ championship.
Neither of McLaren’s drivers have ever known the team to start a season so successfully: Norris was born in 1999, Piastri 2001.
Piastri delivered McLaren’s first win and pole position in the home of their racing division’s majority shareholder, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat. Ferrari has the most wins in this race, with seven, the first coming at the inaugural 2004 event.
For the third race in a row, both McLaren drivers finished on the podium. Norris has now done so for five races running, which is his longest streak of rostrum appearances.
The pair were split by George Russell. Although this was his 18th official podium finish, as he noted afterwards, few of those have been for second place. This was only his third, and the first of those came in the non-event that was the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix.
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After introducing a new floor, Ferrari enjoyed their best result of the season so far in a grand prix, including Lewis Hamilton’s first top five finish since joining them.
Verstappen’s last-lap pass on Pierre Gasly meant he finished sixth and ensured he avoided his worst running position at the chequered flag since the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix. Coincidentally, that was also the last race at which he made an on-track pass for position on the final lap, taking Sebastian Vettel. Verstappen has now finished sixth in three of the last nine grands prix.
Despite his relegation to seventh place, Gasly delivered Alpine’s first points of the season with seventh place. All 10 teams have now scored points, and much earlier than last year, when it took Sauber until the penultimate round to get on the board.
Yuki Tsunoda scored his first points as a Red Bull driver with ninth place. This ended Red Bull’s five-race run of only scoring points with one of its cars (specifically, Verstappen’s). This was the longest run in which Red Bull failed to score points with both cars since 2018, when they went six races with only Verstappen or Daniel Ricciardo taking points.
Oliver Bearman climbed 10 places to score points for the third grand prix in a row, which is also his fifth points score of his seven career starts. That plus Esteban Ocon’s eighth place moved Haas up to fifth in the constructors’ championship, the highest position they have ever finished a season, which was also back in 2018.
That 10th place for Bearman came at the expense of his 2024 Prema Formula 2 team mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli, now at Mercedes, who failed to score a point for the first time in his F1 career (including sprint races).
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He, like team mate Russell, received a one-place grid drop after qualifying. This previously unusual penalty has now been issued three times in the last six grands prix, the other being for Verstappen in Qatar last year. Prior to that it hadn’t been seen since the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix.
Four drivers are not yet to score points this year: Jack Doohan, Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto and Fernando Alonso. This is the first time Alonso’s failed to score in the first four grands prix since 2017.
That, of course, was the last time he raced an F1 car powered by Honda, which will take over as Aston Martin’s power unit supplier next year. To say Alonso will be hoping they do a better job than when they powered his McLarens would be quite an understatement.
Over to you
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