The fourth round of the 2025 Formula 1 season offered more clues for how this year's title fight will play out.
From Oscar Piastri's dominant win to Lando Norris's scrappy recovery, our writers reflect on what that means for the championship battle this year:
Norris's salvage job was deeply unconvincing
Scott Mitchell-Malm
By a mix of luck and judgement, Norris got close to the result he needed in Bahrain. But it was an unconvincing salvage job.
Second was always going to be the best possible outcome in a fairly straightforward race for the frontrunners, given the form Piastri is in and the advantage that he had earned on Saturday versus Norris's underwhelming grid position. But it would have required quite a bit of creativity to plot, pre-race, the route Norris would take to get to the podium.
It looked so easy at the start. He nailed the launch, picked a good line into Turn 1, and was firm against Charles Leclerc while using the grip from his softer tyres to make three places just a few seconds into his grand prix. Perfect! Except it was partly undermined by a needless five-second penalty for a bizarrely obvious out of position start.
No matter, given the pace of the McLaren. But Norris's race continued to be vexingly volatile. He was imprecise in combat with the failed attempt at passing Leclerc around the outside of Turn 4, and the lock-up into Turn 1, which were examples of racecraft too weak for Norris's standards. When he did get Leclerc, it was with a much better, excellently judged move around the outside of Turn 4.
That was Norris nailing the ideal Bahrain pass. But when why didn't he set George Russell up for the same move on the final lap? It was confusing, and frustrating to see him send it on the outside of Turn 1 and unsurprisingly didn't come off. Not only that, it stopped Norris attacking into Turn 4.
If he ends up inheriting second from Russell due to the Mercedes driver's DRS issue then Norris will be pleased and relieved to have got such a result over the line on a pretty bad day/weekend. Even third place could end up being the first real case of Norris ticking the 'you win the title on your bad days' box this season.
But he's made it harder than he needed to.
Piastri has to be title favourite tonight
Matt Beer
I'm not convinced Piastri is quicker than Norris. In fact I think there will be a few key races where he's notably slower. But he's doing a much better job at keeping his mind clear and executing on the opportunities McLaren's mega car presents right now.
Norris's honesty on his bad days is admirable and preferable to a driver denying underperformance is their own fault or seeking excuses. It's just the depths he seems to reach feel almost counterproductive. Yes, he made it back to the podium today, but his racecraft looked very uncertain in places.
I'm thankful in a way for this almost self-sabotaging trait in Norris, as without it he'd probably be about 20 points clear in the championship by now - instead of having a seemingly bulletproof and super-quick team-mate now right on his tail.
Trending towards McLaren favouring Piastri
Gary Anderson
Piastri is definitely coming of age: two poles and going on to win from them just shows how he has blended with the car. And on top of that we are seeing the same old from Norris of a driver who gets a bit flustered when it’s not all going their way.
If that continues then you would have to say that McLaren will need to think about giving Piastri priority if team orders need to come into play anytime soon.
It also shows that when at a circuit where tyre degradation is a priority, McLaren is definitely on top of that issue. The others are not bad on one lap pace but once the race kicks off for McLaren and its drivers, it’s just about not making mistakes.
Ferrari is a good example of that, Leclerc shows he can drag a lap out of the car but come the race things just deteriorate very quickly.
Mercedes at least with Russell has made a step. There is still another one to make but it is definitely vying for best of the rest. Kimi Antonelli is in there as well, but I thing he needs a little more time to really find his feet.
It seems to me that Red Bull didn't account for the fact that it was going to be hot in Bahrain and that if it wasn't competitive enough to be on pole (which it wasn't) then running in traffic would lead to overheating.
Max Verstappen was not very happy with his brakes even in practice but especially in the race. The team also seems to be more vulnerable to pitstop problems - perhaps losing its sporting director Jonathan Wheatley to Sauber/Audi was not such a good thing?
And I think a shout-out needs to go to Pierre Gasly and Alpine, they did a good job this weekend. Hopefully they can keep it up, but we will need a few more races before we really know the pecking order, it seems to change very quickly.
Piastri, not Verstappen, is Norris's nightmare driver
Josh Suttill
We've seen plenty of evidence that Verstappen has Norris covered in most scenarios. He bested him time and time again in 2024 and early 2025. Norris clearly needs a car advantage to beat Verstappen to a title and there's decent early evidence that he'll have that at enough tracks.
But it's not Verstappen who will be haunting Norris right now it's Piastri. Red Bull's pace and development trajectory are unknown, right now Norris has a quicker car than Verstappen, perhaps that will change as the season progresses and the introduction of the flexi-wing clampdown from Spain in June, or perhaps it won't.
For now, it means Verstappen is only going to be a problem for Norris at some circuits like Suzuka.
But Piastri is going to be a problem for Norris at every circuit. His rate of progression is so immense that even his weaker 2024 circuits like Shanghai, can no longer be relied on as less-pressured weekends for Norris.
Piastri pushed him all the way in Australia, bested him in China, was toe-to-toe in Japan and has taken his most decisive victory yet in Bahrain.
At no point have things been comfortable for Norris in 2025 with Piastri breathing down his neck at every opportunity and there's zero reason to think that will change. Don't forget Jeddah is next, where Piastri was already a huge threat in 2023 and 2024 and faster than Norris.
Norris might have the points lead because Piastri's Melbourne error was so costly (the same error Norris made with smaller consequences) but right now it's Norris coming off a clear second-best in that intra-team comparison.
