Emotions were high heading into the second race of the first triple-header of the 2025 Formula One season. A lot was said about McLaren’s strategy during the Japanese Grand Prix. Many people believed that the team played their cards wrong during the race and robbed themselves of a victory. This week, McLaren is the unquestionable favorite for the win, especially after Oscar Piastri got the coveted pole position.
The MCL39, McLaren’s 2025 contender, is widely considered to be the quickest car on the field. This week, the car shined underneath the hot Bahrain sun. No other teams could come close to the times set by Piastri and his teammate, Lando Norris.
On Friday, Norris topped the times during the first practice session and Piastri repeated his feat during the second one. In both cases, the leaders had quite a big advantage over the rest of the field. As the day came to an end, a consensus was reached among the fans of the sport: Bahrain was going to become McLaren’s private playground.
The feeling only got stronger on Saturday morning after Piastri, once again, finished a practice session with a lap much quicker than anyone else could manage. This time, he was over half a second ahead of the next driver in line. Despite the session not being representative of the conditions that would be seen during qualifying, it cemented the team’s advantage.
Q1 and Q2 went as many people expected. Both McLarens could be consistently found at the top of the leaderboards, often a few tenths ahead of their nearest competitors. During the middle session, their first timed runs were good enough to all but guarantee them a place in Q3. They didn’t need to use a new set of soft tires to try again. Because of that, they were the only team with two sets of new softs available during the last session of the day.
Going into Q3, the fans were convinced that the McLarens were heading in for a private battle for pole. On their first timed attempts, Piastri managed to get the provisional first position. Norris was beaten by the Mercedes of George Russell and pushed to third.
Russell only got better with his second attempt. He put together a lap that placed him in front of Piastri’s first time. Piastri answered with a lightning-fast lap of his own and reclaimed the pole that he seemed destined to achieve.
What about Norris? His second attempt wasn’t good enough to put him on the front row by his teammate’s side. It also wasn’t good enough to put him on the second one. The British driver will begin tomorrow’s race from P6, behind Piastri, Russell, Charles Leclerc, Kimi Antonelli, and Pierre Gasly.
Piastri’s well-deserved pole puts him in a good position to fight for his second win of the season. With his car, McLaren achieved all that they could have. What is the situation on the other side of the garage? Why did Norris’ performance fall away so significantly during Q3? And, most importantly, how will his starting position affect tomorrow’s race?
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