F1 Bahrain pre-season test - Day 1
Updates on the opening day of the 2025 F1 Bahrain pre-season test
Live Standings
Live Text
So that's it for the day in Bahrain. Lando Norris fastest in 1m30.430s - not an especially significant time in the grand scheme of things, given track conditions, run plans etc.
Perhaps more significantly Norris covered 52 laps after that earlier delay. He'll be pleased about that extra hour.
George Russell, second fastest, completed 70 laps. Max Verstappen, with a fastest lap less than a tenth off Russell's, did 78. But the busiest driver of the day was Esteban Ocon, who completed 88 tours in his Haas.
It'll be interesting to watch Aston Martin tomorrow since Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll completed just 46 and 42 laps respectively, lowest of all the teams. Elon Musk would be putting them on performance management!
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Lando returns after one lap and the McLaren mechanics form an interference line outside the garage to block his car from prying lenses. An enterprising photographer tries to 'pap' it from an overhead angle and is playfully batted away.
For all this sturm und drang, any aerodynamicist watching at home will have some nice HD on-track footage to study.
Fascinating scenes in the McLaren garage as the MCL39 is liberally covered in flo-viz paint while Lando Norris, still belted in, is shielded via a screen of bubble wrap.
Fans of genre fiction will no doubt be familiar with this sort of thing being used as an inexpensive special effect in the Dr Who adventure 'The Ark In Space'.
Sauber launches its new car mid-test!
They say you should never 'Kick' a team when it's down... but why has Sauber chosen this moment, nearly 10 hours into the first test of the year, to announce the launch of its new car?
No doubt a result of the earlier power failure keeping the track action going an extra hour. Well, that's the first scheduled email fail of the year.
In the best cheesy radio DJ style, tell us all about your scheduled email fails! That's what the comments section is for y'know...
Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Both Russell and Verstappen have now eclipsed Charles Leclerc's lap from earlier on – 1m30.587s and 1m30.674s respectively. Norris is still fastest overall but, interestingly, Russell was faster than him through the final sector and Verstappen through the first sector.
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
George Russell now returns to the fray on C3s. Max Verstappen follows, as does Isack Hadjar and Lance Stroll.
Leclerc has pitted after a 10-lap stint, Gasly after 13. Interestingly, Norris stopped after 16 laps on those C2s, came out and did a lap on C3s, then pitted again.
Just two laps into his stint on C2s and Bortoleto has what we can only describe as a whoopsie of understeer at Turn 11 as the Sauber's nose refuses to bite in properly.
Gasly has just clocked a lap over two minutes; he may have paid a brief visit to the pits. Certainly there has been no footage of any on-track mishaps - perhaps the TV crew has checked out early.
We're in long run territory here, with no times to quicken the pulse. Norris is lapping in the 1m33s on the C2, Gasly in the 1m35s on the same compound.
Half an hour to go at the moment and just five cars on track: Norris, Ocon, Sainz, Gasly and Leclerc. Sainz has only just come out after some time in the pits. And now Bortoleto makes it six.
Lando Norris has to quell a snap in his MCL39 - it looks messy and takes him over the kerbs. He's currently circulating on the C2s.
EDIT: He's on C2s according to one graphic, C3 according to the F1 TV feed; white-striped tyres though...
Monaco strategy changes signed off
More news from the FIA. The World Motor Sport Council has met today - hope the biscuits were nice - and ratified proposals to make a two-stop strategy mandatory in both wet and dry conditions at the Monaco Grand Prix.
As explained here, usually Monaco is a nailed-on one-stopper because nobody wants to give away track position.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin AMR24, makes a pit stop
Photo by: Glenn Dunbar
Curse of the commentator there as Hadjar randomly goes off at Turn 7; it initially looked as if he was jumping out of another driver's way, but nobody else was present. Second view suggests he wasn't pushing anyway, was perhaps in too high a gear, and was trying to make a dial adjustment on the steering wheel when he should have been looking where he was going.
Isack Hadjar throwing his car into corners like a go-kart. The in-car footage is fascinating: some quite punchy hand movements on the wheel, at the opposite end of the scale from the likes of Alain Prost or Jarno Trulli.
Isack Hadjar, RB F1 Team
Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Motorsport Images
The session will now finish at 20:00 local, which will come as tidings of great joy to whoever is writing our "10 Things We Learned From Day One" analysis.
What have you learned today? I'm not asking this in a threatening way - no need to cc your response to your line manager...
As if to celebrate this momentous occasion, Lando Norris sets the fastest time so far: 1m30.430 on the C3 tyre. Four tenths faster than Leclerc lapped earlier in more clement conditions, which shows just how much time remains on the table.
Session extended!
Ring out, solstice bells - no, hang on, that was Jethro Tull. Anyway, celebrate in any way meaningful to you as we've just received news that this session will be extended by an hour to make up for the earlier hiatus.
Carlos Sainz just runs a little wide at the exit of Turn 11 - goes to show that, while outright times aren't necessarily an objective during this kind of session, the drivers are still pushing the limits.
Point of sartorial order - there are a lot of backwards-turned baseball caps on display in the Red Bull garage. C'mon - you know this instantly lowers your IQ by 50%, right?
The reason an hour cannot simply be added on to the end of the day is that it would involve a change to the F1 sporting regulations - the FIA is involved in the current discussions about an extension.
Extension?
Incoming missive from Alex Kalinauckas in the media centre: “F1 officials are currently in discussion on whether the session will be extended as a result of the power outage and the lost hour of running”
Turn 1 is, as its name suggests, a corner. A right-hand corner, as it happens. Carlos Sainz has just failed to turn right (perhaps used to heading in the other direction when he gets on a plane) and skittered across the run-off.
It's asphalt, and he got off the brakes fast enough not to lock his wheels badly, so no harm done to the Williams.
Max Verstappen exiting the pits in the wheeltracks of Gabriel Bortoleto; there's a splash of green on the hips of the RB21 but don't worry, that's flo-viz paint rather than the aftermath of a pitlane fender-bender between Max and the dayglo Swiss machine
Aaaaaaaand we're ready to go again
Engines are firing, drivers are scrambling into action, and the pitlane is about to get busy again.
Meanwhile, a light mist of rain is falling and the ambient temperature is 14.4C. Track temp is 18.4C. So don't expect an eventful scrap at the top of the leaderboard in the remaining time (not that this would be happening anyway on day one of a pre-season test).
"We expect to restart the session shortly" says the FIA. They are still checking that all the trackside systems have rebooted properly.
"No show-stopper, but pretty much as we expected." That's how Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies describes his new car's performance so far. This in conversation with F1 TV's Lawrence Barretto, still clad in his highly visible pink jacket. Always good to see people taking sensible health and safety precautions.
Yuki Tsunoda, RB F1 Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
How long does it take drivers to figure out how good their car is?
That's a very good question - and not one that any drivers will be answering right now, after nearly an hour of thumb-twiddling. So why not find out the answer here?
George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
It has come to our attention that the illuminated electronic Aramco ad banner across the start-finish straight has been on throughout. Someone having a laugh?
This is a little like one of those early 1980s editions of the BBC's Top of the Pops when the electricians' union was on strike and DJ Simon Bates had to huddle in a dimly lit corner of the studio and introduce whatever pre-recorded videos they had to hand, including clips from the previous weeks.
Famously, this helped the otherwise obscure funk band Linx reach number seven in the UK charts with Intuition, which had been languishing outside the top 40 until the sparkies went on strike.
Our colleagues at the track reporting the power is off in the media centre as well. Don't worry guys - we'll send a food parcel.
Update from the FIA: the red flag is linked to the power outage.
Nil defaecare Sherlock, as the Romans might have said...
POWER CUT
Alarms sound up and down the pitlane. No, this isn't the signal for the FIA prez to stick his fingers in his ears because a driver is about to drop an f-bomb - there's been a power cut at the circuit.
There will be a brief interruption while someone goes and sticks 50p in the meter*
*This joke for the benefit of those born in the 1970s or earlier.
Charles Leclerc is back in the garage after setting the fastest lap so far, 1m30.878s. Like George Russell, who he's just usurped at the top of the table, Charles was running the Pirelli C3 tyres. No surprise there as this is expected to be the most-used compound this season.
Wondering what's happening with Lando Norris?
Update from Alex Kalinauckas in Bahrain: “Lando Norris has only completed a handful of laps so far this afternoon - nearly three-quarters down on Charles Leclerc in at Ferrari - but the team tells me this is all to do with the time it takes to make changes they planned to make for the second session, rather than a specific issue.”
Lando Norris, McLaren
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
Speaking of Aston Martin, has anyone seen Mike Krack?
As a matter of fact we have - this morning in fact.
F1 TV's Lawrence Barretto interviewing Aston Martin team principal and CEO Andy Cowell in a jacket that renders on my TV in an eye-searing pink – Lawrence's jacket, that is, not Andy's. One of my takeaways from the press conferences ahead of last week's F175 event was that, big-brained as Cowell no doubt is, he doesn't know the difference between 'less' and 'fewer'. See also James Vowles wrestling with the reflexive personal pronoun.
Anyway, it's now time for me to dash off after a short stint at the tiller to hand over to our master of mayhem Stuart Codling! May there be many puns, jokes, and references to 1980s pop culture. See ya later!
Verstappen's back on track - after a bit of a smoky pit exit - and circulating on the C2. After he'd spooled up for a lap, he got a bit wayward in Turns 1 and 2 - so he had to put the Verstopper in the bottle on that lap - and circulate again to get the tyres up to temperature.
By: Motorsport.com staff writers
