The Japanese Grand Prix noticed Max Verstappen spoil what a McLaren victory social gathering because the Purple Bull driver nipped pole place from Lando Norris and saved Norris and Oscar Piastri at bay all through the race for his first win of the 2025 season.
Piastri made positive there wouldn’t be a repeat efficiency on the Bahrain Grand Prix.
The Australian driver put in a dominant efficiency for McLaren, taking pole place on Saturday after which slamming the door on all challengers, holding off George Russell to take the Bahrain Grand Prix, changing into the primary repeat winner of the 2025 season.
With Norris recovering from a poor qualifying efficiency to climb to 3rd, McLaren prolonged their lead over Mercedes within the Constructors’ Championship to 58 factors.
As for the drivers, the McLaren duo are separated by simply three factors, with Norris sitting on 77 factors and Piastri on 74.
“It’s been an unbelievable weekend, beginning off with qualifying yesterday and, yeah, to complete the job right now in model was good,” mentioned Piastri trackside to Karun Chandhok. “So, yeah, can’t thank the workforce sufficient for the automobile they’ve given us. It’s fairly useful on the market. So no, it’s been an ideal weekend and, yeah, very happy with what I’ve carried out this weekend as effectively. Very proud to do it right here in Bahrain as effectively. It’s clearly an important race for us, given our homeowners, and it’s by no means been a observe that’s been form to us. So it’s good to lastly have that first win for the workforce.”
Mumtalaket, the sovereign wealth fund of Bahrain, bought the McLaren Group in 2024.
“It’s incredible to have the primary win right here for the workforce,” added Piastri within the FIA Press Convention. “It clearly means so much for everyone concerned. There’s been quite a lot of powerful years for the workforce at McLaren, and clearly the homeowners have been on the head of making an attempt to show these issues round. So to now have… Clearly, we had success final season, however to now have success for the primary time on house soil for the workforce is an unbelievable consequence and really deserved. So yeah, it’s nice to have this success.”
Whereas McLaren was topic to a little bit of criticism over how they dealt with the technique behind Verstappen on the Japanese Grand Prix, the workforce was on level all through the race based on Piastri, beginning with their resolution to start the race on the comfortable tires.
“I imply, we sort of thought most individuals would begin on the Smooth. You realize, George solely had one Medium and one Laborious, and there have been fairly lots of people round us that had been in the identical boat,” mentioned Piastri. “So yeah, we felt beginning on the Smooth was going to be the best choice, and I feel it was the suitable alternative ultimately. So happy with how we managed every little thing. I feel we had the tempo right now to have the ability to handle issues fairly effectively. However yeah, I feel we made all the suitable calls.”
McLaren will hope to make the suitable calls once more subsequent week, as the primary triple-header of the season involves an in depth with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
