Oscar Piastri wins Formula One 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix

Buckle up Australia because Oscar Piastri’s charge to the Formula One world championship is well and truly on.

Buckle up Australia because Oscar Piastri’s charge to the Formula One world championship is well and truly on.

Tipped as a future world champion even before he started his Formula One career in 2023, the 24-year-old Australian is already on track to challenge for the greatest prize in motor sport after a dominant victory in the Bahrain Grand Prix in the early hours of Monday morning.

Starting from pole position, Piastri produced another masterclass of high-speed driving to leave his rivals eating his dust as he cruised to his second win in four races this season to overtake defending champion Max Verstappen into second spot in the drivers’ standings.

Oscar Piastri celebrates winning the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix

Piastri’s McLaren team mate Lando Norris, who won the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after getting a huge helping hand from Melbourne’s fickle weather, finished third to retain the championship lead with 77 points, but with a reduced margin of just three points to Piastri (74), the only driver to win multiple races in 2025.

Verstappen, who took the checkered flag in Japan last weekend, crossed the line sixth in his struggling Red Bull to slip back to third place in the standings on 69, six ahead of George Russell, who finished second in Bahrain, more than 15 seconds behind Piastri.

“Great to have this result out here, it’s been an incredible weekend, to start off in qualifying and to finish off the job in style was nice,” Piastri said.

“I can’t thank the team enough for the car they’ve given us, it’s pretty handy out there, it’s been a great weekend and I’m very proud of what I’ve done as well.

“I’m proud to have done it here in Bahrain as well. It’s obviously a very important race for us given our owners and it’s never been a track that has been kind to us so it’s nice to finally have that first win for the team here.”

Competing in his 50th Grand Prix, Piastri was flawless in registering his fourth Grand Prix victory after winning in Hungary and Azerbaijan last year then China last month.

This was by far his most complete win. As McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “If anything, I would say it was a perfect weekend.”

As well as claiming his second career pole position, Piastri also posted the fastest lap of the 57-lap race and in front all the way apart from when he briefly dropped to third after the first of his two stops.

Leading by more than seven seconds, Piastri lost the advantage he had built up when a safety car was deployed to the Sakhir circuit with 24 laps remaining, but he was unflustered and pulled away from the field immediately after the restart.

“I would have preferred to not have had the safety car but I was still pretty confident,” Piastri said.

“The pace was good and I was pretty confident I could get a good restart. I also knew that Lando and I were the only ones with another medium (tyre) and that was the tyre to be on.

“From that side of things it was relatively straightforward. Obviously, you try and get a good restart and you don’t know how it’s going to go but I was never going to let that one go.”

Oscar Piastri is the first multiple race winner in 2025.

With the first four races of the season won by the driver starting on pole, Piastri was always in the box seat after his biggest title rival Norris started from sixth after a poor performance in qualifying.

The Englishman was given a five-second penalty for a false start, which he served during his first pit stop, but worked his way through the field and was rapidly closing in on Russell for second place when he ran out of laps.

“It was a tough race. I made too many mistakes with the overtakes and being out of position,” Norris said.

“It was a messy race from me and I’m disappointed not to bring home a one-two for McLaren because that would have been lovely at home, it’s a tough one but still a few positives.

“Oscar did a good job so congratulations to Oscar and the whole McLaren team and I will try and step it up for next weekend.”

Oscar Piastri gave McLaren its first ever win in Bahrain

Unable to catch Piastri, Russell spent the final part of the race fending off Norris while battling an electrical failure. He was investigated after the race when he accidentally opened the DRS in the wrong zone while rebooting his onboard system but was cleared of any wrongdoing and allowed to keep his second place trophy.

“It felt under control and then suddenly we had a brake-valve wire failure. Suddenly the pedal was going long, then it was going short, I didn’t know what was going on,” Russell said.

“Oscar was in a league of his own, congratulations to him and McLaren, we knew they would be pretty extraordinary around this circuit, I was proven right. For ourselves, it’s been four races, three podiums, all on different types of tracks, so it gives us confidence going into the future.”

Australia’s Jack Doohan finished 14th in his Alpine.

The fifth race of the 24-round championship is next weekend’s Saudi Arabia Grand Prix.

Originally published as Oscar Piastri wins Formula One 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix