Oscar Piastri romps to victory within the Bahrain Grand Prix and closes the hole on Lando Norris in title tussle after McLaren team-mate finishes third

‘What a muppet!’ exclaimed Lando Norris of himself. Orange lit up the sky for Oscar Piastri, winner of the Bahrain Grand Prix for the ‘home’ team McLaren. 

The Australian planted himself on the world championship map as a serious contender. Assassin-cool, clean on track. Quiet but deadly. For Norris, as we can easily detect from his own admission, another night of recriminations.

We shall come to the full mind-scrambling horror of that, and we must not make light of it, but one felt like summoning a psychologist.

Norris is so talented, but it seems demons can seize his mind and cramp his hands when the battle is at its fiercest. He has plenty of time to remedy the curse this season but has he the capacity to do so?

There is a reluctance to be overly harsh after this weekend’s showing, in which he started sixth and finished third in the same superior machinery as Piastri, but the striking differences between the pair speak for themselves.

Piastri, 24 years and eight days old, unfurled his second victory of the season as if a formality from pole, in the end by 15 seconds over Mercedes’ George Russell. The margin would have been greater but for a safety car interrupting proceedings as shrapnel was swept from the track.

Oscar Piastri dominated to win the Bahrain Grand Prix and cut Lando Norris’ title lead

Piastri powered home 15 seconds clear of George Russell, who finished second for Mercedes

Norris claimed a podium spot but his championship advantage is now just three points

As for Norris, a mixed bag, at best. Obviously qualifying sixth in what was the fastest car, if not quite so demonstrably so by the margin some had predicted, was a disappointment. He was never in the mix for the front row. He called his form ‘clueless’ in his own self-flagellating style on Saturday night. 

Then, adding insult to under-performance, he overshot his grid slot on arrival for the grand prix. A five-second penalty followed for this false start. The error underlined concerns echoing in minds from last year, when he blinked at the key moments when he might have knocked Max Verstappen clean out, and so won the title.

As for the ‘muppet’ reference, he locked up while chasing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, a job he made a meal of before making the pass stick. Leclerc finished fourth, his revered team-mate Lewis Hamilton eight seconds further back in fifth.

Norris also failed to pass Russell, who defended valiantly, and thus the dream one-two of McLaren was thwarted. The one-three meant a great deal to the royal family here, it being their first win on home Tarmac in 21 years of hosting this festival in the desert. Victory was a relief after a weekend of hope.

For McLaren are owned by the Gulf kingdom’s ruling Al Khalifas and toasts were raised in the team’s rammed hospitality area even before Crown Prince Salman, their ultimate boss, handed the winner’s prize to Piastri. When the team won the constructors’ crown, they turned the capital Manama into a blizzard of orange lights – sorry, ‘papaya’ – the team’s colours. McLaren are owned in Bahrain but made in Britain – a behemoth of our motorsport industry based in Woking, Surrey – and founded by a New Zealander (Bruce McLaren, in case you are new on the scene.)

When the decent but not scintillating race was over, Norris was comforted by a few thobe-clad Bahrainis. It was hard not to feel a degree of sympathy for him, as Piastri’s triumph unquestionably fed fearful thoughts into his already clouded mind.

A telling remark the night before the race came from team principal Andrea Stella. He observed that Piastri had no noise in his mind. Who did?

Norris, still three points clear of Piastri after four rounds, offered an essay in agony.

We let the quotes run because they are a light into Norris’s mind right now.

‘Too many mistakes today,’ he said. ‘I wish I knew how to get the best out of the car. I don’t have an answer, even for myself. When you are an athlete, a driver, you know when things click and you feel comfortable.

‘I’m confident I have everything I need. I have got what it takes. I have no doubt I am good enough and all of those things. But something is just not clicking with me and the car. Last season I felt on top of the car. This year could not feel more opposite. Even in Australia – I won the race but never felt comfortable. I’m just nowhere near reaching the capability I have. It hurts to say.

‘Last night I left late to look into everything and understand what is not clicking, trying to figure out what has changed from last year to this year. I am not doubting myself even though sometimes it might seem like that.

‘I am so hungry to win and I work so hard to win that when it does not go my way I am very disappointed in myself.

‘Doing interviews and saying the things I do, I don’t think have a bad impact on me. I have learnt to block my own comments away from my thoughts. Maybe sometimes I lack a bit of self- belief but that is also me, the way I do things. It is what has made me as good as I am and maybe at times has limited me from becoming a better driver.’

Enough of that, doctor!

Elsewhere, a terrible day for Verstappen, finishing sixth. Plenty of work to do at Red Bull. He may feel the pressure of trying to wring everything out of his inferior machinery, but, whatever else he may be, he is as hard as nails.