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How Piastri overcame ‘diabolical’ start to win Bahrain GP

Oscar Piastri overcame a "diabolical" opening practice session at the Bahrain Grand Prix to dominate Sunday's race.

Mat Coch
Mat Coch
14 Apr 2025
Mat Coch
//
14 Apr 2025
// F1
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How Piastri overcame ‘diabolical’ start to win Bahrain GP
Oscar Piastri overcame a "diabolical" opening practice session at the Bahrain Grand Prix to dominate Sunday's race. Image: XPB Images.

Piastri started from pole for the second time in his career before becoming the first repeat winner of 2025.

It was a commanding drive during which he was never challenged and only gave up the lead during the pit stop cycles.

He took the chequered flag with a 15.5s advantage over George Russell, a gap that could have been greater if a mid-race Safety Car had not eliminated the eight-second advantage he held at the time.

“It’s been a great weekend,” Piastri began.

“Maybe not FP1 because that was pretty diabolical for everyone, but FP2 onwards has been very, very strong.

“I was happy after Qualifying yesterday and I think that made quite a big difference today.

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“So very, very pleased with how the weekend’s gone, and happy to come away with another win.”

Piastri was only 10th fastest after the opening hour of practice on Friday, held in hot and sunny conditions.

Lando Norris topped the session in the other McLaren before Piastri was quickest in every session for the balance of the weekend.

Even changes ahead of Saturday’s track action to minimum tyre pressures weren’t enough to slow the Aussie, who instead enjoyed a whopping six-tenth advantage in Free Practice 3.

He continued that pace in Qualifying, delivering pole position while Norris was unable to extract the full pace of his McLaren to line up only sixth.

Come the race, both McLaren drivers started on the soft tyres.

Piastri promptly converted pole into the race lead, despite being briefly challenged by George Russell, after which he was never troubled.

“We kind of thought most people would start on the soft [tyres],” Piastri said of his race strategy.

“George only had one medium and one hard, and there’s quite a lot of people around us that were in the same boat.

“So we felt starting on the soft was going to be the best option, and I think it was the right choice in the end.”

From the soft tyres, Piastri swapped onto the medium rubber at his first stop on lap 14.

The emergence of the Safety Car on Lap 32 was perfectly timed for his second stop, where he took on another set of mediums for the 25-lap run to the flag.

“Pleased with how we managed everything,” he said of the performance.

“We had the pace today to be able to manage things pretty well, but I think we made all the right calls.”

While it was a near-perfect performance on track, it wasn’t entirely issue-free.

A drink bottle issue in the car meant that once the race got going, Piastri could not drink.

“I don’t know what happened,” he admitted.

“It worked on the laps to the grid and then when we plugged it in for the race, it was still working a little bit, but I had to draw the water out pretty forcefully.

“Once the race got underway, I couldn’t get any water through the straw, so that wasn’t ideal.

“But Bahrain is not the most physical race of the year.

“If it happened next week [in Saudi Arabia] it would have been a much bigger drama.”

The win in Bahrain is Piastri’s second of the season, having started from pole to dominate in China at Round 2.

It’s also his third podium from four events, the performance moving him to second behind Norris in the drivers’ championship.

F1 heads to Saudi Arabia for Round 5 this weekend, with cars on track from Friday.

Tags: bahrain gpmclarenoscar piastri
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