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McLaren’s Oscar Piastri produced a composed drive to win the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday, leaving the rest of the field in his wake as he led the race from start to finish.
Piastri was coasting around the track for much of the race, building up a solid lead over his rivals, before a safety car injected some jeopardy at the halfway point. But the Australian showed no signs of buckling under pressure as his rivals bunched up behind him.
Instead, he simply opened up his lead again and held on until the checkered flag.
His teammate Lando Norris had a more fraught race, brushing off a five second penalty to move up from sixth to third place and maintain his slender lead in the drivers’ championship.
Mercedes’ George Russell held off Norris’ late challenge and overcame issues with his car to clinch second.
“It’s been an incredible weekend. To finish the job today in style was nice,” Piastri said after the race. “I can’t thank the team enough for the car they’ve given us. It is pretty handy out there. It’s never been a track that’s been kind to us, so it’s nice to finally get a result here.
“I would have preferred not to have (the safety car) but I was still pretty confident. It was relatively straightforward. I was never going to let that one go.”
Where Piastri stayed out of trouble up front, almost every driver behind him had to cope with some sort of incident.
Norris initially got off to a brilliant start and moved up from sixth to third to somewhat make up for his disappointing qualifying session on Saturday.
But it proved too good to be true and the Brit received a five second penalty for accidentally starting outside his grid box. He served that in the pits and spent much of the race tussling with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc for a podium spot.
Several times, Norris set himself up for the overtake and either misjudged it or was thwarted by Leclerc before he eventually passed the Monegasque driver with five laps left.
“A tough race,” Norris said afterward. “I made too many mistakes with the overtakes, and out of position. A messy race from me and disappointed not to bring home a 1-2 for McLaren.”
Leclerc eventually settled for fourth with his teammate Lewis Hamilton finishing in fifth – a respectable result after he had started in ninth on the grid.
Max Verstappen, meanwhile, never really threatened the leaders and languished in sixth after suffering two slow pit stops.
This story has been updated with additional information.