Is Rio Haryanto a future star?

The Indonesian Driver collected a second and first place at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

After the Bahrain Grand Prix, it was clear that Vandoorne had the advantage. A poor weekend for the DAMS drivers as well as Marciello, Sirotkin, Evans and Pic meant that many of the Belgium's expected championship contenders were now on the back foot. After collecting pole, a win in race 1 and the fastest lap. It looked set up for him to do a clean sweep, but narrowly missed out, coming second.

What was clear was that no-one could match the pace of Vandoorne all weekend. All but one man...

Before 2015, Haryanto's best GP2 result was a second place at Silverstone in 2013, but had never finished higher than 14th in the championship. He now moves into his fourth season of the Series. Haryanto did not show much speed during pre-season testing, but ultimately it's all about the result on the day. Having collected his first GP2 victory on the Sunday, his performance even got a mention on the national Indonesian news.

He is undoubtedly Indonesia's best driver in a generation, but is he ready to step into F1?

As I said before, he hasn't shone in GP2 in previous seasons and had limited pace in testing, but is this simply his coming-of-age, after all, the 2014 champion; Palmer won the title after 4 years. At 22, he's certainly young enough to make the leap the F1 or other higher formulas.

He hasn't been exceptional in other series either. He did win the Formula BMW Pacific championship in 2009, but this is small to average achievement considering the calibre of his competitors who have competed and been successful in FR3.5 and European F3. While his 2 years in GP3 saw him collect just 3 victories but did earn him a test drive for the Marussia Formula One team.

Finishing well in the first weekend doesn't always mean that drivers become championship contenders. Leal managed a personal best 2nd and 3rd in last years Bahrain GP, but struggled as the year went on, scoring 2 points in the second half of the year and falling to 10th in the final standings.

While in 2013, Coletti managed to build up his lead at the start. After 6 races (3 rounds) he had 120 points, with Nasr on 96, Bird 58 and Leimer 54. Yet despite this large point advantage, it was Leimer who won the title as Coletti scored just 1 more time for the rest of the season finishing 5th. While Nasr also fell to 4th overall.

The point is, Haryanto is going to have to prove he can keep up the pace for the rest of the season if he is to gain respect from the F1 community. Although he was wiped out after only a few laps, team mate, Pic proved the car is competitive. So the pressure is on Rio to see if he can really challenge Vandoorne (and the others), or was Bahrain a one off.

Then again, with Formula One today, it's likely that he could just buy a drive. Or perhaps that's just me being cynical.

See you in Spain.

-|RacingRecaps|-