Oscar Piastri stayed out of trouble to take a win on the occasion of his 50th start in Formula 1, while also securing McLaren’s first at their ‘second home’ Grand Prix in Bahrain.
It’s known as a second home race for them because the team is owned by Mumtalakat, the sovereign wealth fund of the country, with Bahrain choosing to celebrate McLaren’s win by changing the phone networks in the Manama area.
Lando Norris could only manage third place, having started from P6 on the grid and overtaking cars at the start, although he was later handed a time penalty for being out of position on the grid.
The Drivers’ Championship now has just three points separating the McLaren drivers, while Max Verstappen dropped back after only finishing in P6.
Red Bull was behind both Ferrari and Mercedes in Bahrain, which George Russell used to capitalise and take his second podium of the season. Discussing his race in his column for Sky Sports, commentator Martin Brundle believes the Bahrain GP was his ‘finest’ race in F1.
Martin Brundle hails ‘finest’ drive from George Russell
Russell had already impressed with his overtake on Charles Leclerc at the start for second place, then later in the race he had to deal with numerous problems with his car.
The brake-by-wire system had failed in his Mercedes, leading to Russell getting a lot of coaching from his engineer to bring the car home while under pressure from Norris.
Brundle thinks it was a ‘timely’ race, especially considering Russell is on the cusp of signing a new £22.8 million contract with Mercedes.
“George Russell in an ailing Mercedes had other ideas though, and drove around fundamental braking and electrical issues brilliantly to hang on,” wrote Brundle.
“Having made a great start too, this was surely one of his finest F1 drives. Very timely too as he looks for a new contract with the team for 2026 and beyond, especially given the paddock talk about Max Verstappen being in the market place.”
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Toto Wolff dismisses chance of Max Verstappen joining Mercedes
Amid troubles at Red Bull for Verstappen, the possibility of him joining Mercedes has opened up again if the team fails to get on top of their problems in the next few races.
Wolff has made his interest clear in Verstappen, after missing out on him early in his career due to Red Bull giving him a fast-track opportunity to F1 in 2015.
Such a dynamic would be difficult at Mercedes, given Russell’s spat with Verstappen late last season in which the pair went on a war of words.
As Russell edges closer to a new contract, Wolff has now dismissed Verstappen joining Mercedes if they continue with the Briton as he is also satisfied with Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
