George Russell was one of the stars of the Bahrain Grand Prix as the Mercedes racer joined both McLaren drivers on the podium and escaped a possible post-race penalty
The fourth round of the Formula 1 season is in the books and, mercifully, the Bahrain Grand Prix had a lot more going for it than the previous weekend’s race in Japan. This time there were overtakes, collisions, plenty of penalties and, most crucially of all, some entertainment.
There was only ever one man going to win the race. Oscar Piastri started on pole and completely dominated proceedings as McLaren lived up to their pre-event billing as the ones to beat.
The Aussie’s success made history for his team. The McLaren Group is owned by the Bahraini sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat but, remarkably, before Sunday’s race, the outfit had never before won at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Once Piastri maintained the leader at the first corner, there was no looking back and his victory margin of more than 15 seconds is the biggest of the season so far. It would have surely been even greater had it not been for a safety car period which bunched everyone up again mid-way through the Grand Prix.
Of course, there was plenty of fall-out from the race including penalties, a disqualification and even an angry confrontation in the Red Bull garage. Mirror Sport has all the headlines:
READ MORE: Oscar Piastri oblivious to Bahrain Grand Prix chaos as Lando Norris gets wake-up callREAD MORE: Sir Jackie Stewart, 85, drives F1 car at Bahrain GP with Michael Schumacher signed helmet
Russell breaks rules but no penalty
There was no doubting that George Russell briefly used his DRS when he shouldn’t have during the Bahrain race. But it was not deliberate – his Mercedes was suffering some technical gremlins in the latter stages – and he made up for the time he gained by slowing on purpose once he realised what had happened.
The stewards took that into account as they investigated the incident. They decided that, even though he had broken the rules, Russell had remedied the situation himself and so there was no need to penalise him, meaning he kept second place ahead of Lando Norris.
Sky Sports launches discounted Formula 1 package
£43
£35
Sky
Get Sky Sports here
Formula 1 fans can watch every practice, qualifying and race live with Sky’s new Essential TV and Sky Sports bundle in a new deal that saves £192.
As well as Sky Sports access, this includes more than 100 TV channels and free subscriptions to Netflix and Discovery+.
FIA disqualifies driver after race
We’ve had a couple of post-race disqualifications already this season, a fact of which Ferrari fans will be painfully aware. And there was another here, this time affecting Sauber and one of the drivers who did not finish in the points anyway.
Nico Hulkenberg was disqualified because there was too much wear to the underside of his car when FIA scrutineers examined it after the race. It was the same breach of the technical regulations for which Lewis Hamilton was disqualified from last month’s Chinese Grand Prix.
Angry confrontation at Red Bull
It was something of a miserable weekend for Max Verstappen and his Red Bull team. He lacked pace throughout the three days of running and finished the race in sixth place, more than half a minute behind Piastri – a result so concerning to the team’s senior management that they held a crisis meeting in the aftermath of the race.
And that was not the only eye-catching thing that happened around that time. Ted Kravitz noticed the moment Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen made a beeline for Helmut Marko in the team garage after the race and gave the Austrian “a piece of his mind”.
Brundle casts doubt on Russell’s future
Russell has started the season superbly. But his current Mercedes contract is up at the end of the season and, with Verstappen clearly not happy with Red Bull’s performance struggles so far this year, speculation remains that he could be looking elsewhere going forward if he feels another team can give him a better chance of winning more titles.
And that is why Martin Brundle is not convinced Russell is guaranteed to get an extension at Mercedes. He said: “I think if Max Verstappen sprung into the marketplace I would be quite worried for George, actually… Toto [Wolff, team principal] missed Max once, I don’t think he’ll miss him a second time should he get the opportunity.”
