Bahrain Grand Prix: Oscar Piastri fastest in practice as McLaren goes one, two
McLaren’s cars seemed to be racing themselves in practice at Bahrain as Aussie Oscar Piastri blitzed the field to finish just 0.154 seconds faster than teammate Lando Norris.
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Australia’s Oscar Piastri has sent a timely message to all the rival teams that McLaren is way ahead on sheer pace after he pipped his teammate Lando Norris to set the fastest time in practice for this weekend’s Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix.
With the driver starting from pole position winning all three previous rounds this season, Saturday night’s qualifying session could go a long way to deciding who takes the checkered flag in the first Middle East round of 2025.
So far, everything points to the two McLarens fighting for the front of the grid after Norris topped the timesheets in the first practice then Piastri went quickest in the second, stopping the clock 0.154 seconds quicker than the Englishman.
None of the other teams threatened the papaya coloured cars but Piastri was playing it cool, saying things could be different in qualifying and the race, with tyre degradation expected to play a key role.
“Pretty happy to be honest. I think the car felt like it was in a good place,” Piastri said.
“FP1 was a very different story so I’m glad that everything came together a bit more. The one lap pace looked strong and the longer running looked reasonable as well so pretty happy with that.
“Obviously there’s still some things that we want to try and work on and make it nicer, but all in all a good first day.”
Piastri said he was not expecting McLaren’s advantage to be as sizeable as it was over the other teams but expected things to tighten up.
“For it to be quite that big was a bit of a surprise but I think the others will find a bit more tomorrow,” he said.
New lid check ✔ï¸#McLaren | #BahrainGP 🇧🇠pic.twitter.com/RANj0iqYht
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) April 11, 2025
“I think it’ll be pretty close so nice to have it now but Bahrain’s also a track that you can overtake on and tyre deg is a big factor so qualifying here is still going to be important but I think we need to make sure we put a good race car as well.
“I think we look decent. It’s just everyone’s degrading a lot So I think you just need to look into the details and see how we can make that a little bit nicer but it certainly wasn’t too bad.”
Norris also tried to play down McLaren’s advantage.
“A reasonable day for the team. Some tricky conditions, very different to the test, so it’s about understanding the car in the heat,” he said.
“The team have worked hard all day, and we now have plenty of things to focus on tomorrow to make sure we’re in a strong position for qualifying.”
But the other teams were all convinced McLaren is streets ahead.
“They are a long way ahead in the middle sector, where the tyres are overheating,” said George Russell, who was third fastest for Mercedes.
“A bit of work to do but I think we’re fighting for next best.
“I think it’s going to be close between us, Ferrari and Max. But unlike the first three races, I feel this race won’t be dominated by qualifying, it will be dominated by race pace and tyre degradation.”
World Champion Max Verstappen, who surprised McLarens to win in Japan last weekend, said he thought had no chance of winning in the Red Bull.
“We have a lot of work to do, also on the long runs. We’re simply too slow. To be honest, it wasn’t really fun on the longer runs.
“At the end I even had some drift training. The gap to the McLarens is big. We also had a different approach than other Fridays, so this gap is really big.”
Piastri finished fourth in last year’s drivers’ championship but is already up to third this season, in part because of his improved single lap speed, which McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said was a sign of his growing maturity.
“Oscar is just more confident in qualifying. He’s just more capable of putting things together,” Stella said.
“I think he has more awareness, which comes with experience, which comes with all the analysis that has been going on during the winter so we see a stronger Oscar.”
With McLaren favourites to win the constructors and drivers title this year, Stella said last week’s surprise loss to Verstappen in Japan was a reminder nothing can be taken for granted.
“We didn’t need any wake-up call because we were not sleeping, and certainly we were not dreaming,” he said.
“We were wide awake, knowing that if we don’t capitalise on the full performance of the car, then we will be beaten.”
Originally published as Bahrain Grand Prix: Oscar Piastri fastest in practice as McLaren goes one, two
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