After three days of testing the Formula 1 Bahrain test has come to an end. As the season opener in Australia approaches the Bahrain test was the first opportunity to see how the cars stacked up against one another in 2025. The 2024 F1 champion Max Verstappen struggle to find balance in his RB21 until the later stages of the weekend. Red Bull saw a severe drop in performance compared to the McLarens in the second half of the 2024 season. As a result Sergio Perez was replaced by Liam Lawson. A change that many felt was controversial. Lawson set good lap times but the Red Bulls covered the least distance of any team on the weekend which raises questions as to whether they made the most of this test.
Ferrari Shows Signs of Positivity
Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari over the off season was met with excitement and promise. Although his first outing in the SF-25 didn’t go smoothly. In Bahrain Hamilton appeared to be himself reborn. The Ferrari looked to go tit for tat with the McLarens which points to the performance at the top of the constructors table to be brewing for a heated battle all season. “Overall, it’s been a great few days and we’ve made some strong progress as a team,” said Hamilton. “We had to finish a little earlier than planned today, and the weather has been hard to predict all week, but that’s how testing works sometimes, and we’ve managed to gather a lot of good information to build on before the season starts.
The whole team has done an incredible job, and I’m so excited to get to the first race in Melbourne. I can’t wait to go racing with them.”
McLaren Picks Up Where They Left Off
McLaren show signs of improvement despite not setting the fastest times on day three of testing. Andrea Stella commented, “The end of three productive days here in Bahrain. We completed our aero tests this morning, before giving both Lando and Oscar a chance for some runs to allow them to gain insight into the capabilities of the car before we head to Australia. We also took the opportunity to make some further set-up changes as we continue to learn about the characteristics of the MCL39. The team here and in Woking have done a great job of bringing our new car to the track and allowing us to maximise all of the time available to us this week. We have plenty to analyze and work on before the first race of the season in two weeks’ time.”
Of note George Russell ran the fastest on day 3 of testing. Williams also seems to have found some of the magic with Alex Albon running third fastest. The F1 rookies Jack Doohan, Kimi Antonelli and Oliver Bearman all showed signs of promise as they get up to speed with the pace of Formula 1 cars.
The opening round of the Formula 1 season kicks off March 13-16 in Australia.