Picture Credit: X/@F1
At a time where McLaren have only recently been served a wake up call and perhaps timely so by the Red Bull outfit who won at Japan, it’s time for Grand Prix racing yet again as the second stop of the 2025 season’s maiden triple-header is right upon us.
It’s been no fewer than 21 years since the first ever Bahrain Grand Prix took place, circa 2004.
A track generally considered a good surface with a few little bumps, Bahrain is technical in nature and another high speed racing venue that provides plenty of overtaking opportunities for the ten teams and hence, the twenty drivers.
A venue with as much tire degradation as there are high speed corners, the 2025 installation of the Sakhir-bound Grand Prix is expected to be a three-way fight to the checkered flag with McLaren perhaps in for a hard fight with the dashing duo of Mercedes and Ferrari.
That told, here are SportsTiger’s top predictions in association with Stake for the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix:
Undermine Ferrari at your own peril on Sunday
The best race result that the iconic racing marquee have bagged thus far happens to be Charles Leclerc’s P4 at Japan, which occurred just very recently.
But out here in the desert heat of Sakhir, Leclerc will find himself with a fighting chance of finishing inside the top three on the grid.
Hoping to extract yet more performance on the race day, Leclerc, who happened to have claimed pole here at Bahrain but back in 2019, captured a respectable P3 at the end of qualifying just hours ago.
In what lies ahead, Charles will manage his tires well and given some decent racing experience of having contested at this venue a few times before, the noted Monegasque will not only outperform his teammate, Sir Lewis Hamilton but will put a great fight to the Mercedes machines on Sunday.
His closest rival on track at Sakhir will be George Russell, who on pure race pace, is often right up there alongside Leclerc.
McLaren will strongly hit back at Red Bull
For the next set of 57 laps of Grand Prix racing that’s upon us, we shall see a resounding McLaren comeback after Red Bull hung them out to dry at the recently-held Suzuka-bound Japanese Grand Prix.
While this time around, Bahrain may not exactly be a track suited to Red Bull who’ve got one in three race wins in the bag already, Sakhir is likely to see a roaring Oscar Piastri triumph.
While for the better part of Q2, Oscar Piastri, still significantly inexperienced in comparison to his teammate, led the charge and held the track position, he would extend his advantage in the dying moments thanks to a blistering lap time of 1:29:841.
Come race day, the Bahrain Grand Prix will see the young Australian, currently contesting in just his third season, vying for- and likely earning- a 4th race win in Formula 1.
Should that happen, the chances of which are about as certain as Kimi Raikkonen loving ice, it’ll be the first time that the young Aussie will emerge on the very top step of the podium here at the electrifying Sakhir circuit.
Tough day out on the track for Max Verstappen
By the time he approached turn 4 in his penultimate lap during the final qualifying run at Sakhir, i.e., Q3, Max Verstappen’s braking issues with the car went from bad to worse.
Race winner last weekend and clearly struggling for pace and stability this time around, the winner of the Japanese Grand Prix found himself relegated to the very bottom of the final ten in Q3 with just a few moments left in the session.
Not that he didn’t exclaim on the radio about the predicament of his brakes, but things changed ever so little for the defending world champion.
On Sunday, Verstappen is likely to struggle to break into the top five on the grid.
Beginning from seventh on the grid, it’ll take some darn fine racing and perhaps even a stroke of luck for Verstappen to reach the top five at the front part of the grid, which is what he must aim for, at the very least.
A surface where tire degradation and soaring track temperatures are but the norm, it remains to be seen to what extent can the man nicknamed the “Flying Dutchman” engage in damage limitation given his P7 grid position.
Interestingly, the Dutch talent finds himself just ahead of former teammate, Carlos Sainz but staring into the rear of Lando Norris’s McLaren.
For the first time this season, Sainz will outperform Albon
He didn’t score a point at Australia. Forget that, he didn’t even finish the race. Then, at the expense of the double Ferrari disqualification at China, he scored a point at Shanghai. A solitary point. Next up, he couldn’t finish, once again, inside the top ten at the Suzuka-bound Japanese Grand Prix.
But out here in round four of the 2025 F1 season, Williams newcomer and four-time race winner, Carlos Sainz Jr begins his Bahrain challenge from eighth on the grid.
Surely, Sainz is bound to the miss the feeling of being on the Bahrain podium, which was the case the last year around in red racing overalls, but it is, nevertheless, a refreshing sight to see a Williams car inside the top ten here at Bahrain for the first time since 2017.
Probably, this very prospect will further inspire Sainz perform even better on race day. Safe to say that F1’s “Smooth operator” will outrun the brilliant Thai-British driver, Albon who’s been quite a revelation for James Vowels’s team up to this point.
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