In an electrifying start to the Bahrain pre-season testing of 2025, McLaren’s racing ace, Lando Norris, emerged as the fastest driver, setting the pace on day one. Amid challenging weather conditions with occasional rain and gusty winds, the Formula 1 drivers introduced their 2025-spec cars to the Sakhir circuit, demonstrating remarkable reliability and consistency.
However, the action was temporarily suspended due to an unexpected power outage, triggered by an external substation failure. The red flag, signaling a halt in the proceedings, was displayed for over an hour as power was gradually restored to the circuit. Despite this interruption, teams managed to recover the lost hour by extending the session beyond the initially planned finish time.
Mercedes’ newcomer, Kimi Antonelli, set the early pace during the morning session before the midday break. However, post-break, the baton was handed over to George Russell, and Antonelli’s position was swiftly downgraded to fifth, which eventually slipped to seventh due to a power disruption.
Shortly after the resumption of activities, Norris seized the spotlight by clocking the fastest time of 1m30.430s on medium (C3 compound) tyres, pushing defending champions McLaren into pole position. Interestingly, most of the day’s best times were clocked using the same compound, which is the softest option typically chosen by the teams for the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend.
While Norris’s time was considerably slower than the peak lap times expected at the Sakhir circuit, it was nearly a second faster than the preceding year’s champion, Max Verstappen’s best time from the same day of the 2024 test.
Mercedes’ Russell and Red Bull’s Verstappen rounded off the top three performers of the day. Russell hinted that the cooler conditions might have favored the performance of his vehicle, which had shown a preference for such weather in the previous year.
Red Bull’s RB21, bearing a striking resemblance to the previous year’s RB20, showcased impressive speed but was a bit twitchy at times. Liam Lawson’s spin at Turn 2 during the morning session was a notable incident, along with a spin from Racing Bulls’ rookie, Isack Hadjar.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, despite setting the fourth-fastest time, managed to clock his and the team’s best time before the power outage, just under a second faster than his new teammate, Lewis Hamilton.
The only team falling short on track time was Aston Martin with its new AMR25. Both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, driving the Aston, failed to cross the 50-lap mark, a feat achieved by every other team splitting runs between two drivers in morning and afternoon sessions.
Despite recording the third-slowest peak lap time with the Aston, Sauber’s rookie Gabriel Bortoleto logged his best time on the hard (C2) tyres. Haas, on the other hand, focused mainly on heavy-fuel race pace work with Esteban Ocon leading the day’s mileage rankings.
As the first day of testing concluded, the results were as follows: Norris led the pack, followed by Russell, Verstappen, Leclerc, Sainz, Gasly, Antonelli, Lawson, Albon, Tsunoda, Hadjar, Bortoleto, Hamilton, Doohan, Alonso, Stroll, Piastri, Hulkenberg, Ocon, and Bearman.
