Lando Norris (P6, 8 pts): 7.5/10
One look at least year's statistics shows us that Bahrain is not a natural circuit for McLaren, so it's good news that the team fared so much better here this weekend than it did 12 months ago. Lando Norris and his team mate Oscar Piastri were in the top three in FP1, and Norris felt he was in with a chance of a front row start in qualifying until he messed up the opening stint of his final flying lap in Q3. He was naturally scathingly self-critical about it - nice to know some things haven't changed over the off-season. He had a good start with passes on Fernando Alonso and a struggling Charles Leclerc, but the latter found better form in the second half of the race and Norris was relegated to watching the Red Bulls and Ferraris fight it out ahead of him. He would have have loved to get the better of George Russell at the end - the pair were evenly matched this weekend, but it proved just a step too far.
George Russell (P5, 10 pts): 8/10
Whoever gets to take over from Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes next year, there is little doubt that George Russell will be the de facto team leader in 2025. Bahrain felt like he was keen to get started on laying the groundwork for a new era at Brackley. Frankly he looked like the better driver this weekend, even if Hamilton topped the timesheets in FP2 with Russell second quickest. Russell was the quickest Mercedes in final practice and jumped to P3 on the grid, while Hamilton faltered. Russell used his second row start to jump Charles Leclerc early in the race, but then his engine started overheating and he was increasingly struggling for pace and grip. He fell backwards to finish in fifth, which was frankly less than he deserved: "I think without the issue we would have been in the fight for P3," he suggested, and we would agree.
