Oscar Piatri has won the Grand Prix of Bahrain and gained a pretty much one overrested by his stable rival Lando Norris. Formula 1 expert Christian Danner and RTL data analyst Steffen Kosuch not only do the two McLar faces in their desert analysis.
In the sport.de-Debrief for the Bahrain -GP you will find out what makes Piatris performance so impressive what Norris has to do now to see land again -and how bad it is about Red Bull.
Oscar Piatri was the clear dominator of the Bahrain-GP. At the start, he asserted his pole position sovereign, constantly settled by the pursuers in the first stint. The minimal danger of an undercut by Mercedes and George Russell at the first pit stops without any problems.
In the second stint, Piatri enlarged his upholstery, only because of a safety car in the middle of the racing, the pursuers saw the rear of the papaya racer again. Broadcast Futsch – so what! The young Aussie also mastered this phase and settled again after the restart.
It was particularly impressive, such as unspectacular, flawless and extremely efficient Piatri in the fourth Grand Prix victory of his career-a “clinical idea” of the 24-year-old.
Graph: behind the top pilots (in seconds/high axis) on racing winner Piatri In the course of the race (right axis)
The complete counterpart to this ice-cold “Smooth Operator” (Carlos Sainz may forgive us) was in Manama WM-LEADER Lando Norris. The few free rounds on Sunday indicate that Norris, with the same material, drove to Piatri-Level in terms of pure performance.
But: As on Saturday, the Englishman kept building bucks in the race, which a World Cup candidate simply cannot pass. So Norris was rushing his actually strong start, which brought him from P6 to P3 with his faux pas in the start box. Because he parked his McLaren too far ahead, Norris received a five-second penalty.
Formula 1: Norris has to digest Bahrain
Norris had to serve the punishment at his first stop, which in turn confused his strategy. Norris also incorporated mistakes in the attempts to overtake the Ferrari pilots driving in front of him in the meantime (Track Limits against Hamilton injured, braking against Leclerc).
At the end of the race, the Englishman simply went out to push the George Russell in Mercedes from second place. Third place – clearly too little for Norris! It is now important for him to digest the Bahrain weekend, to press Reset and to rebuild his system in front of Saudi Arabia.
Russell gratefully accepted the Norris weakness in Bahrain and once again took out the maximum for the silver arrows. Already at the start he grabbed P2 from Bahrain specialist Leclerc and no longer gave up the position – apart from a short phase during the first stops.
In the end, Russell not only fought with the upcoming pursuers -namely Norris and Leclerc -he also had technical problems with the DRS, the brake system and the steering wheel display. Under these circumstances to save second place – a ripe, a strong performance!
Help! Red Bull is already looking forward to ninth places
Ferrari also got the maximum out of his (still disappointing) possibilities on Sunday. P4 and P5 – There was nothing more for Scuderia, which of course does not meet your own requirements. Ferraris underlines that Charles Leclerc could not get by and could not defend himself against Norris.
A red ray of hope is Lewis Hamilton. The superstar seems to be getting settled in the team. As fifth, he was not yet at the level of his stable colleague, but the tendency is pointing up.
The trend, on the other hand, shows for Red Bull and Max Verstappen, who was a shadow of himself in Bahrain. It was only in the last round that the world champion secured sixth place against Pierre Gasly. Red Bull was never there in the fight for the top.
To say it clearly: the bulls are currently the fourth force. So far from the music, the racing team was last in Monza 2024. The fact that the bosses are happy about ninth of Yuki Tsunoda says it all says about the Red Bull state.
Not only the RB21 is paralyzed, the team also passes unusual mistakes such as the stops. It becomes interesting whether and if so how quickly Red Bull frees himself from this valley.
Perhaps a look at Alpine, the upward trend of which continues after the terrible start in 2024: Pierre Gasly delivered a strong performance as a seventh, Rookie Jack Doohan was also in the points for a long time and only fell back to the end of the race.
Haas can also be happy. Both cars in the points – this was not to be expected after the start of the season.
To person:
Christian Danner made the leap into Formula 1 in 1985 with winning the Formula 3000 European Championship. Until 1989 he ran four World Cup points in the premier class for several small teams and won four World Cup. Then he drove in the US Indycar series and became the first German racing driver to score points in Formula 1 and Indycar. In the DTM, Danner won five races between 1988 and 1996, in 1997 he retired from motorsport. Since 1998, Bayer has commented on Formula 1 at RTL alongside Heiko Wäßer. Danner works as a TV expert and driving safety trainer. Follows Christian Danner on Instagram.
Steffen Kosuch, a former Moto-cross driver, has been part of the Formula 1 team at RTL since the early 2000s. As a former racing engineer and advisor to the FIA, he takes care of racing strategy, performance analyzes, regulations and advertising planning at RTL.