Norris strains in Sakhir in the face of Piastri perfection

What made it harder for the Englishman to take was how his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri became the first two-time winner in 2025, with a performance that could with equal accuracy be summed up as perfection. The Australian put in an astonishingly cool performance in the desert night to underline how real his threat is, as the pair square up for what looks set to be a nip-and-tuck battle to win the World Championship.

Bad start for Norris

There were awkward smiles afterwards, but Norris couldn’t hide his disappointment after a heavy defeat in Bahrain. More alarming was how distraught he’d looked and sounded on Saturday after admitting to feeling lost on his lack of pace in qualifying, having only netted sixth on the grid in comparison to Piastri’s pole position.

Fresh optimism on race day appeared justified when Norris made a scalding start to make up three places in the opening moments. As George Russell shot past front row starter Charles Leclerc – starting on medium Pirellis in contrast to his soft-tyred rivals – the McLaren also picked off the Ferrari at Turn 4 to complete the opening lap in third.

Then came news of the penalty. Norris had shifted ahead and out of his starting box on the grid when selecting first gear. That’s a slam-dunk five-second penalty and the first setback of his evening, as Piastri calmly built a gap over Russell’s Mercedes up front.

Still in contention

As it happened, such was McLaren’s pace around Sakhir that the penalty didn’t hold Norris back too much. He stopped early on lap 11 to switch from softs to mediums, took his five seconds in the process, then was so quick Mercedes was forced to pit Russell just three laps later to avoid the undercut.

Piastri pitted a lap later as Leclerc and team-mate Lewis Hamilton – rising from an underwhelming eighth on the grid – briefly assumed a Ferrari 1-2. Hamilton, like his team-mate, had gone against the grain by starting on the mediums on an evening when a range of tyre strategies played out on Sakhir’s famously abrasive and still original surface from when it was first laid in 2003.

The Ferraris pitted together on lap 18, with Leclerc vocal on the radio that he didn’t want another set of mediums. His preference for the “delta” option – presumably hard-compound tyres – probably wouldn’t have worked out, judging by Max Verstappen’s struggles in his middle stint on the white-walled rubber. So, another set of mediums it was, for both red cars.

Norris vs Leclerc

After the first round of stops, Piastri was more than three seconds ahead of Russell, with Norris in third and Leclerc fourth. The expectation at this stage was that the second McLaren would soon threaten the Mercedes to make it a papaya 1-2. Instead, Leclerc closed in on his fresher mediums and gave Norris a fresh headache. After a first attack that didn’t come off on lap 24, Leclerc pulled an outside pass on the outside of Turn 4 the following time around. Norris was now in a fight to make the podium.

Safety car pulls Piastri back

The second round of stops followed a touch earlier than expected, thanks to a safety car interlude on lap 32 to clear debris following a clash between Carlos Sainz’s Williams and Yuki Tsunoda’s Red Bull. All of the top five streamed in at the same time, but they emerged on an intriguing range of different tyres: Piastri on fresh mediums, Russell on softs he nervously suggested would be “audacious” to make last until the end, Leclerc and Hamilton on hards, and Norris on mediums.

Racing resumed on lap 36 for a 21-lap sprint to the flag. Piastri admitted he could have done without the safety car, which zapped his seven-second lead to nothing. But in reality he was in a class of one in Bahrain. Russell couldn’t lay a glove on the dominant Aussie. Instead, all eyes were on Norris.

A fraught finish

On his mediums, Norris was now on theoretically the best tyre in the quickest car. But still he made heavy weather of fighting his way past Leclerc. Indeed, from the restart Hamilton showed that his racecraft remains as sharp as ever by pouncing out of Turn 1 as Norris attacked Leclerc. Instead of gaining, Lando had lost another position. His first pass on Lewis was off the track on the outside of Turn 4, so McLaren quickly told him to relinquish the place.

He did so, then made a legitimate move ahead of the Turn 4 braking zone. “This tyre sucks,” was Hamilton’s succinct verdict on the hard Pirelli. The double-medium strategy had pulled him up from eighth on the grid into contention, but now he and Leclerc were on the worst tyre as the closing laps counted down.

Yet still Norris made a meal of making it on to the podium. As Lando loomed on, Leclerc’s defence was tough but fair despite the McLaren driver’s complaint after he’d been forced wide at Turn 4.

Norris had already locked up and lost time at Turn 1 after his initial assault. But finally, on lap 52 of 57, he nailed Leclerc with a peach of a move around the outside of Turn 4. The best moment of his race, by some margin.

Now Norris set after Russell, who was in all sorts of bother in his Mercedes. George revealed he was managing a brake-by-wire failure and an apparent control systems meltdown, at one stage activating his DRS when he hadn’t meant to after pressing the radio button! The fear was he’d pick up a penalty despite immediately backing off to ensure he hadn’t gained an advantage.

Thankfully, the stewards showed leniency. To have lost second place in such circumstances that were beyond his control would have been harsh in the extreme. Not for the first time this season, Russell had driven a superb race as the Mercedes team leader.

Verstappen’s last-gasp sixth

Leclerc finished a lacklustre fourth, having dropped two places across the race. That Ferrari offset strategy really hadn’t worked out for him. Hamilton was fifth and apparently the official Driver of the Day – although surely that should have been Piastri.

Behind the Ferraris, Max Verstappen just about mustered enough to scrape sixth with a last-lap pass on Pierre Gasly’s Alpine. Just a week on from his fantastic Japanese Grand Prix, the Red Bull driver was all at sea in a Red Bull that left him frustrated and largely anonymous. Funny old game.

Seventh was still a decent return for Gasly, even though the Frenchman had lined up a brilliant fourth on the grid. Former team-mate Esteban Ocon also drove a blinder, rising from 14^th on to eighth for Haas, with Tsunoda logging his first points for Red Bull in ninth after a mighty midfield scrap. And Ollie Bearman repeated his tenth place from a week earlier, despite starting his Haas at the back of the grid. Another brilliant effort from the teenager.

Pressure on Norris to hit back in Saudi

During the closing stages, Piastri was reminded by his engineer to take a drink from his water bottle – but responded laconically that he didn’t need it, because he really wasn’t working that hard. The contrast to Norris couldn’t have been more stark.

The British driver still leads the World Championship, although at this early stage that’s fairly meaningless. For the record, Piastri is now only three points behind. Verstappen is hanging in there in third, five more in arrears – but as it stands, an exclusive McLaren duel for the Title looks most likely. And right now, Piastri is red hot.

“A tough race,” summed up a beaten up-looking Norris afterwards. “Of course, I made too many mistakes with the overtakes, the out of position [moment on the grid] – it was a messy race from me.”

On the plus side, he doesn’t have long to wait to respond, with the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix completing the triple-header this coming weekend. It’s still only April and there’s 20 more to come, but Norris really needs to beat his team-mate in Saudi, for his own peace of mind if nothing else. His convincing win at the Melbourne season opener last month is a fast-receding memory.

Images courtesy of Getty Images.