Racing in only his third F1 season, Oscar Piastri has started to take F1 by storm, which was evident at last weekend’s Bahrain GP. The Australian secured a dominant victory around the Sakhir International Circuit from pole position to make his 50th Grand Prix appearance a special one.
Piastri was flawless throughout the weekend as he set the pace benchmark in the practice sessions before taking pole in qualifying as multiple drivers failed to match his lap times in the cool Saturday evening at Sakhir. And the cherry on top was his sublime performance in the Grand Prix—which he won by a comfortable margin of 15.4 seconds.
It was basically a repeat of his win from pole in China, but better. However, this victory in Bahrain has not only solidified Piastri’s championship bid for the 2025 drivers’ title, but also put him on the same pedestal as some of the sport’s finest world champions—Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, and Piastri’s veteran countryman, Jack Brabham.
Each of these three drivers were able to convert their first two poles into victory. Naturally, Piastri would be happy to join this elite group of champion drivers, who were a class apart at their peak in F1. But there is another statistic that is common among these three champions, and Piastri would feel delighted to learn the same.
Hamilton, Vettel, and Brabham have all won more than three world championships in their career. Now, Piastri is definitely a young talent who has been touted to be a future world champion in F1 and reach mega heights like these three did.
However, the Aussie’s talent and the significance of his recent achievement in Bahrain are highlighted when we compare him with his teammate, Lando Norris.
The only drivers in F1 history to convert their first 2 poles to victory:
• Jack Brabham
• Lewis Hamilton
• Sebastian Vettel
• Oscar PiastriThe good news for Piastri? The others all won 3 or more drivers’ championships. pic.twitter.com/SGmAS68CkA
— Daniel Valente ️ (@F1GuyDan) April 15, 2025
Norris has been a supremely good qualifier and finally got a quick enough car last year to start racking up pole positions. However, the Briton was unable to extract the McLaren’s top-notch performance by converting those poles to wins.
While he has 10 poles under his belt, Norris has converted only four of those to victories. Moreover, he developed this tendency of losing the race lead whenever he started from pole. Even during last year’s Dutch GP in Zandvoort, where he eventually won, he could not retain the lead on the first lap after starting from P1.
The #4 driver has also been ridiculed in the F1 community on social media for this poor pole-to-win conversion ratio during the second half of last year.
As for Piastri, he has only started taking poles in 2025, as his qualifying wasn’t really the best in his first two years in the sport. So, with the Aussie stepping up this season, especially in qualifying, Norris has a steep challenge on his hands.
If Norris wants to fight for the title, he will definitely have to sharpen up his game, as his main rival for the championship this season seems to be none other than Piastri, who—other than his costly mistake in Melbourne so far—has looked faultless.
