Oscar Piastri won a dominant victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix, marking McLaren’s first victory in Sakhir and moving to only three points behind his teammate Lando Norris in the F1 ranking. George Russell held Norris for P2 while Max Verstappen finished sixth.
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Sakhir, Bahrain: Oscar Piastri celebrated his 50th Formula 1 race with a pole victory over Flag in Bahrain on Sunday who catapulted him in second place in the general classification and three points behind the championship leading his teammate McLaren Lando Norris.
Norris had to be satisfied with third place, after having had a five -second penalty for a sautéed departure from the sixth on the grid.
George Russell of Mercedes retained his British compatriot, refusing him a third successive third place in a tense battle on the closing towers.
Russell was summoned to the commissioners for an alleged violation of the rules of the drag reduction system, but they decided not to apply a penalty, the confirmed results.
“It was an incredible weekend, starting with qualifications yesterday and finishing the work today in style was good,” said Piastri, who won by 15.499 seconds despite a period of security annihilating his initial advance.
“This is obviously a very important race for us, given our owners, and it is never a song that was nice to us. It is therefore pleasant to have this first victory for the team (in Bahrain),” added the Australian.
Since the first Grand Prix in Sakhir in 2004, McLaren had never won at the Desert circuit which organizes a home race for the largest shareholder of the British team.
Piastri also became the first winner of the season in four races.
Norris now has 77 points for 74 of Piastri, with McLaren out of 151 in the classification of manufacturers and Mercedes second out of 93.
“I think that at the beginning, I was too far back, so I tried to move forward and slip forward and I did the opposite,” said Norris about his sloppy departure.
“The first time I did this in my life. I shouldn’t happen, but it did – and I paid the price for it. ”
Charles Leclerc de Ferrari, passed by Norris eight laps of the end, and Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and fifth, the former boss of the Italian team Luca di Montezemolo waving the checkered flag while fireworks lit the night sky.
Verstappen sixth
Leclerc and Hamilton started on a different strategy for Mercedes and McLaren, aligning medium tires rather than softs.
The world champion four times from Red Bull, Max Verstappen, who had only been a point behind Norris after winning Japan last weekend, finished sixth after being slowed down with a defective pit signal and fell third in the ranking.
Pierre Gasly scored the first points of the Alpine campaign in the seventh and the former teammate Esteban Ocon, who crushed in qualifying, redeemed himself with eighth for Haas.
Yuki Tsunoda delivered the first double point of Red Bull of the year in ninth and the last point was obtained for Haas by the British recruit Oliver Bearman, which began.
The safety car was deployed on the 32nd of the 57 laps while the civil servants have erased the debris on the track, the main pilots opposing all and Piastri seeing its seven -second advance evaporating.
When he entered, Norris hunted Leclerc and finally kicked after several unsuccessful attempts with the driver McLaren accusing the Mongasque of forcing him at some point.
“I made too many mistakes with overruns,” said Norris. “It was a disorderly race for me and I am disappointed not to bring a two back to McLaren because it would have been charming at home.”
Russell was an obstacle too far despite the driver of Mercedes who fights against various problems of electrical systems.
“He felt under control for a while, then suddenly, we had a brake failure by wire. So, suddenly, the pedal was going for a long time, then it was going short,” said Russell.
“I didn’t know what was going on. The steering wheel did not work properly, so it was really difficult to keep Lando behind. I think that more, he would have had enough comfortably.”
