Bahrain's tough Sakhir circuit finally served up a spectacle that put F1's 10 teams through the ringer. Here's who passed the test with flying colours and who failed to make the cut.
Lando Norris has got a bit of as problem. On a weekend where he struggled to extract the maximum out of his problem, Piastri looked untouchable as the Australian cruised from pole to his second win of the season. It was a pretty ominous performance by the young Australian as he took his fourth career victory, contrasting with a scruffy weekend for Norris that will prompt some soul searching.
Amid all that talk over pressure and mental fortitude which accompanies anything Norris does, could the real problem be that he just hasn't clicked with the 2025 McLaren? The new car is a rapid but significantly different beast than the 2024 machine. That is what he believes, and the team has also admitted there are changes it could make to help Norris feel more confident in the car.

Whatever the cause, Norris has so far taken a step backwards compared to last year, and Piastri's form has gone in the opposite direction. McLaren firmly remains in the driving seat, but it will have some work to do to get Norris firing on all cylinders again.
As the team-by-team form curve behind McLaren changes from weekend to weekend, George Russell has turned into Mr Consistency, snaring his third podium in four races.

The manner in which he has done so in Bahrain makes it the most impressive of the lot. Hounded by the quicker McLaren of Norris, Russell battled distractions caused by electronic issues, a brake-by-wire failure, manual DRS use and a glitching dashboard to deftly fend off Norri's late advances. All on 20+ lap old soft tyres.

Yes, Norris should have probably done better on the more durable medium tyres, but that is not Russell's problem. McLaren's imperious form makes it too early to turn Russell into a title contender, he admitted. But on form alone he is right up there.
Where to start with Red Bull? After keeping up appearances in Melbourne and China, and counting on some Max magic in Japan, Bahrain provided a damning picture of how the mighty have fallen.

A lack of balance and grip was further exposed in the desert heat of the abrasive Sakhir circuit, and to make matters worse seventh-place starting Max Verstappen only reserved two sets of the less popular hards, which even saw him dropped by Haas driver Esteban Ocon at one stage, and passed by Mercedes' Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, before limiting the damage towards the end. And then there were Verstappen's two slow pitstops, both for varying reasons.

Straight after the race, Red Bull's key members convened in the team's hospitality unit for what appeared to be a crisis meeting, with Helmut Marko reporting the team is extremely concerned by the "alarming" weekend's proceedings. A silver lining is that Yuki Tsunoda has had quite a convincing weekend to finish ninth, the first decent weekend for Red Bull's second car in ages. But it needs to start getting on top of its car issues quickly if it wants to stay in the hunt.