Beyond the safe confines of Ferrari HQ in Maranello and the adjoining Fiorano circuit, this week in Bahrain will be the first time we see Lewis Hamilton properly unleashed for the fabled Scuderia.
This week’s official – and only – three-day pre-season test in Bahrain will give the waiting world a first glimpse at the pecking order in Formula One this year, a fortnight out from the 2025 campaign starting at its traditional season-opener in Melbourne, Australia.
And the unknowns are plentiful. In what is the final year of the sport’s current phase of regulations, a convergence of the field seems overwhelmingly likely in 2025. Mercifully, it is no longer a case of nine teams languishing hopelessly behind Red Bull.
The back end of the 2024 season endorses that view, with the last 11 races seeing seven different winners from four different teams. McLaren won their first constructors’ title in 26 years, with Red Bull only finishing third despite Max Verstappen’s individual triumph.
Yet the magnifying glass at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain come Wednesday will, inevitably, be on Ferrari and their star signing.
Last week, Hamilton described his first month as a Ferrari driver as “magic”. Rapturous receptions from staff and fans alike, alongside a host of private testing sessions in Italy and Barcelona, have begun an acclimatisation period much needed after a dozen years at Mercedes.
Hamilton acknowledged as such last week, when he revealed his first laps in a Ferrari in January felt “nothing like” his previous cars at Mercedes and McLaren.
Much of that will be the different engine, with the performance, sound and vibrations of the Ferrari power unit dissimilar to the Mercedes engines he’s had for 18 years. Another differing element is the steering wheel, with new button layouts and control configurations that he will want to get used to as quickly as possible.
Yet Hamilton’s driving style of braking super late for corners, carrying more speed into the entry phase, has shown a lack of correlation with this generation of ground-effect cars and tyres.
Ferrari have looked to compensate for that: their 2025 car has a pull rod front suspension, in contrast to their competitors, giving Hamilton a better mechanical and aerodynamical balance through the corners in testing so far.
Another key detail of Ferrari’s new car will have been welcomed by Hamilton, who likes more distance between the cockpit and the front wheels. In fact, the Brit complained about the 2023 Mercedes cockpit being too close to the front. It may not seem like much, but an increase of 2.5cm from the front axle to the cockpit in this year’s Ferrari car will favour the F1 veteran.
Yet aside from some irrelevant lap times from a Pirelli tyre test in Catalunya – where Hamilton trailed Charles Leclerc – we have not seen any comparable data on the timesheet.
This week’s test will give the first real clue as to where the SF-25 is compared to its rivals.
Much will be made of McLaren’s 2025 car, too, after their huge leap in performance last year. Will they be the frontrunners at the start of this campaign?
And what about Red Bull and Mercedes? Newbies Liam Lawson and Kimi Antonelli respectively will take the reigns first up on Wednesday morning, as they look to get up to speed with time in a competitive car. The question on their lips will be: is it a race-winning car?
Lawson and Antonelli are also two of six full-time rookies competing in F1 this year – a stark progression from 12 months ago, when for the first time in the sport’s history we had an unchanged grid from the end of the 2023 season.
British teenager Ollie Bearman is also first up for Haas on Wednesday, as he looks to build on his standout displays last year including a seventh-place finish for Ferrari in Saudi Arabia.
Jack Doohan, with reserve Franco Colapinto already breathing down his neck, drives for Alpine with F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto joining last year’s wooden spoon winners Sauber, in their final year before they transition to Audi. F2 runner-up Isack Hadjar is the final rookie in action, for Red Bull’s sister team Racing Bulls.
For all six, this three-day test is vital ahead of the first race in Albert Park. Yet, in many ways, a return to Australia as the curtain-raiser for the first time in six years does bring about its challenges compared to starting the season with race one in Bahrain.
The 14-turn, tight and twisty street circuit in Melbourne is vastly different to the traditional 15-turn layout in Bahrain. Standout performers in testing may not be front-of-the-grid down under. And that’s without the usual, and unusual, variables at play this week.
First, the usual: testing times should not be taken as gospel. All 20 drivers will be on different and specific run-plans throughout their potential 12 hours each on track. Some laps will be focused on race-pace and some on qualifying; some on high fuel and some on low fuel.
The presence of green flow-vis paint and aero rakes on cars, used for engineers to visually see the airflow around the car, reinforces the notion that this is an experimental week. Sandbagging, the idea that teams are disguising their true performance, also takes place to varying degrees, with each team keen to keep the secrets to their success early on.
There is also an unusual factor at play: the weather. Most unusually for the Gulf region, rain and wind have been in the air. And while chances of rain over the next three days are still extremely low, temperatures on Wednesday will not exceed 15C. For this generation of F1 cars, that is cold.
Given the issues of cold-weather running in Las Vegas last year, with drivers complaining of a lack of grip, it is not ideal for 10 teams seeking an accurate reading of their data.
Every leaderboard come the end of the day should be taken with a pinch of salt. But Mercedes’s issues throughout this phase of regulations all come back to testing in 2022, when their porpoising issue emerged. Furthermore, Red Bull have been the standout car in the last two years, when their driver has won the world championship.
Nothing is won after testing, but initial signs of underperformance – which can plague a season – definitely rise to the surface.
