RACE REACTIONS FROM THE FORMULA 1 GULF AIR BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 2025
Bahrain
WHAT THE TEAMS SAID
McLaren
Oscar
PIASTRI
“It's been an incredible weekend, starting off with Qualifying yesterday and it was nice to finish the job in style today. I can't thank the team enough for the car they've given us – it was pretty handy out there!
I’m very proud of what I've done this weekend and proud to do it here in Bahrain as well. It's obviously a very important race for us, given our ownership. It’s never been a track that’s been kind to us, so it’s great to finally get the first win for the team in Bahrain.”
Lando
NORRIS
“An up and down race today. Some frustrating mistakes but still plenty of positives to take away with a strong points finish for the team in Bahrain. It was a really good race throughout, everyone pushing hard, right on the limit, which is always fun to be part of. Congratulations to Oscar and the whole team for today’s result. I’ll now keep my head down and work hard as we head to Saudi Arabia next weekend.”
Mercedes
George
RUSSELL
"That was a really challenging race. We had some problems in the last 12 laps including a brake-by-wire failure. When I was hitting the brakes, the pedal was inconsistent, and I had to do some resets for it to work properly again. For 10 laps in a row, going into every corner, I didn’t know whether it would be giving me the same feeling or not. It definitely compromised the race, but at the end of the day, bringing the car home in P2 is mega.
"The brake-by-wire failure wasn’t the only technical challenge we were dealing with either! There were all sorts of issues going on with the transponder and the signals going to the car. That meant that we had to manually override the DRS. At one point, I hit the radio button and saw that the DRS was open. I closed it immediately and lifted off the throttle, so we actually gave up time. Happily, the stewards agreed that no sporting advantage was gained. All of those issues compromised that last stint but the main thing is we leave here with another podium and more solid points scored."
Kimi
ANTONELLI
"That was a difficult race for me today. Being stuck in the dirty air behind several cars played a major role in stalling any progress I was able to make. I pushed hard on my out laps to try and regain track position but then I likely took a little too much out of the tyres. We tried to do something different by switching to the three-stop strategy, but the Safety Car came out shortly after and that took the opportunity away.
"We will review the whole race and see if there are things we could have done differently, but there are definitely still positives we can take away. Qualifying was another good step forwards for me and I felt more and more comfortable racing wheel-to-wheel with others today. Of course, P11 is never the result we are hoping for, but we will have a couple of days off and come back stronger in Jeddah next weekend."
Ferrari
Charles
LECLERC
"There are no regrets after a race like this, we just need to find some more pace. We pushed a bit on the first stint and the second was even faster, but once the Safety Car reset things, our pace just wasn’t good enough to fight the McLarens and George in the Mercedes. In general, there is not a particular type of corner where we are lacking, we just need more grip all round.
"We will understand our upgrade better in Jeddah next week, I look forward to finding out what we will learn about it there."
Lewis
HAMILTON
"Overall, it was a solid race. I got a decent start, made some progress early on and felt strong in the middle stint on the medium tyre and was able to make some overtakes. The car had good pace, and I was able to push while mantaining a performance window I hadn’t been able to reach in previous races. The balance faded a little on the hard compound, but I’m pleased, Grazie to the team - the strategy and pit stops were really well executed and made a real difference to the race. We’ve taken some good learnings from this weekend and we’ll carry that momentum into Jeddah. A big thank you as well to all the tifosi for the continuous support, it truly means a lot."
Red Bull Racing
Max
VERSTAPPEN
“P6 was at least a positive result considering all the things that went wrong today. The start was not good, we struggled with tyre management all race, and I had no grip or pace on the hard tyres. During our pit-stops there was a problem with the lights which cost us a lot of time in the pits and put us back in to traffic. Unfortunately our second pitstop was worse than the first and at one point I was in last place. I enjoyed the fight at the end with Pierre and the overtake on the last lap, I tried to maximise our points until the very end. To finish P6 at the end was the best that we could do, this was not the weekend that we wanted but we have to keep on trying to improve. We are working on finding solutions and solving the issues we have at the moment to hopefully be more competitive in Jeddah."
Yuki
TSUNODA
“Today is another learning curve, I feel like I could have done better, there are still a lot of things we could have done better together and the pit-stop issues lost us position. The pace was good, but I am not fully happy because I still think we could have made up a couple of more positions. It’s only my second race and things come up that you haven’t experienced before, so it’s good a lot of new things are happening in this early phase, so I can maximise things in the future. Overall, it’s my first points with the team, so it has to be a positive day. I feel like we took a step forward from Suzuka, so I appreciate how the team have supported me and how we have been able to progress in a good way so quickly. I am not setting a specific goal for Jeddah yet, it’s just about keeping doing what I am doing, I hope to do slightly better in Qualifying and that should make my life easier."
Alpine
Pierre
GASLY
“I am very happy for the entire team that we scored our first points of the season in seventh place. We lost a position on the last lap to Max so that is a little disappointing but he won last week so we can really only take the positives from that effort. It was a good start from fourth on the grid and we stayed in the front pack on the first stint. We were a little unfortunate with the timing of the Safety Car after our second stop for hard tyres. From there it was flat out to the end, just trying to keep Max behind, and we just ran out of tyres to lose the position. Now we focus straight on Jeddah where hopefully we can be competitive. The car feels good in high-speed corners, I was impressed with how it performed here, so hopefully the same again in Saudi Arabia next weekend and we can repeat our level of competitiveness.”
Jack
DOOHAN
“The result today is disappointing but I am happy that we opened our points tally with Pierre finishing in seventh place. The soft and medium tyres felt strong in the race and we were up to ninth place after the first two stints on those compounds and it looked positive for us. We boxed for the hard to cover some other cars but the Safety Car was deployed at an unfortunate time, which gave some other cars the chance to change to fresher, softer tyres. It was very difficult to keep them behind, we struggled with the rear a bit on that compound, and then we had a time penalty at the end for track limits. We will now continue to keep on building on the progress the team has made this weekend and we have the next race coming up in Jeddah to look forward to in a few days’ time.”
