Great race overall, with a couple of caveats. I think that safety car was a joke and while it did spice things up it was a massive overreaction to a tiny speck of debris and completely unnecessary, and had way too big an impact on the race.

Japan last week to this race back-to-back really showcases the importance of a track and whether it’s conducive to good racing or not. We had some great action today with good battles and some really nice overtakes (and some clumsy collisions).

Also shows the importance of tyres and strategy: all three compounds being in play always tends to exciting races. On that note I think the teams might have actually underestimated this year’s tyres. People were doing 24 laps on the Softs today. I really think the one-stopper was on today. Which shouldn’t be possible in Bahrain but here we are.

Flawless weekend from Piastri who’s really showing his championship calibre. I think Norris might have a problem this season and will need to get on top of his mental, because Oscar is going to give him one hell of a fight. He has basically ironed out all his weaknesses now.

Also thought Russel keeps impressing, always extracting the absolute maximum. People have been sleeping on him for years but he’s staying in the title fight (for now) simply by being Mr Consistent.

Special shout-out to Antonelli who actually drove really well and made some really slick overtakes, but got completely fucked by his pitwall. Letting him get undercut and stuck in a DRS train early on was bad enough, but I really don’t understand what they were doing on the safety car.