MOTORSPORT – CARLOS Sainz was the quickest man yesterday on a rainy second day of Formula 1 Aramco Pre-Season Testing 2025 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.
The Spaniard powered his new team Williams to the top of the timesheet at the end of a full day’s running around BIC’s 5.412-kilometre track – and he did so by beating his former team Ferrari by three-hundredths of a second.
Sainz registered a best lap time of one minute 29.348 seconds during yesterday’s afternoon session to marginally outpace Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, who set his fastest mark while testing in the morning.
“Finished a very long day – a lot of laps,” said Sainz, who has now completed his test programme in Bahrain and will make way for teammate Alex Albon in Williams’ FW47 contender in today’s third and final day of tests.
“A bit of a start-stop day with the rain all the time – in Bahrain – which is weird,” Sainz continued. “Rain, on-off; wind, on-off. It was a bit of a complicated day, a very long day, but a day that we managed to get away with it, do a lot of laps, improvise a bit the run-plan as we were moving on.
“We managed to complete the whole programme. We made some progress, relative to yesterday, improving the balance of the car and the overall feeling of the car.
“Today is my last day so the next thing for me is Australia, which feels like not enough testing. Still, I wish we could try a lot more things, but this is Formula 1 nowadays.
“I feel as ready as I can be with a day-and-a-half of testing, and we will try to push flat out in Australia.”
The F1 teams are in Bahrain gearing up for the 2025 FIA F1 World Championship, which gets underway in Melbourne from March 14 to 16. F1 will then return to the kingdom for the F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, the season’s fourth round, scheduled for April 11 to 13.
Earlier in the day yesterday, Hamilton set the morning pace with a 1:29.379 lap in his SF-25 contender. He was eventually 0.031s from Sainz’s leading time, but led former teammate George Russell in Mercedes’ W16 and Sainz at the end of the opening four hours.
Joining Hamilton, Russell, and Sainz in the morning runs were McLaren’s Oscar Piastri in his MCL39, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso in his AMR25, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly in his A525, Haas’ Esteban Ocon in his VF-25, Racing Bulls’ Yuki Tsunoda in his VCARB 02, Kick Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg in his C45, and Red Bull Racing’s Liam Lawson in his RB21.
Lawson was the other driver who tested the whole day for his team.
In the evening, others out on track were Charles Leclerc for Ferrari, Lando Norris for McLaren, Kimi Antonelli for Mercedes, Lance Stroll for Aston Martin, Jack Doohan for Alpine, Oliver Bearman for Haas, Isack Hadjar of racing Bulls, and Gabriel Bortoleto for Kick Sauber.
Sainz maximised his time in the car yesterday, completing 127 laps for a total of 687km covered. Behind him and Hamilton was Leclerc, who was classified 0.083s Sainz’s pace.
“It was more tricky today on track because of what are unusual weather conditions for Bahrain, with cooler temperatures and even some rain,” said Leclerc, who completed 84 laps in the afternoon session for 454km of running.
“We ran through our planned programme, but with the conditions changing quickly, it was difficult to draw many conclusions. Tonight we are fully focused on analysing our data and preparing for the last day of testing tomorrow.”
Russell and Antonelli followed in fourth and fifth, respectively. Both were also able to clock laps that were quicker than a minute-and-a-half, with Russell going 0.430s behind Sainz and Antonelli 0.436s back.
Stroll was classified sixth 0.881s adrift, Lawson seventh 0.904s off the pace, and Doohan eighth 1.020s from Sainz. Completing the top 10 were Gasly 1.082s from the top and Hadjar 1.327s back.
Lawson, who ran the whole day and completed 91 laps to cover 492km, said: “I am getting more comfortable in the car, it has been a busy day overall.
“As part of testing, we were fighting a few teething gremlins with the car through the day, it’s all about just learning about the new car. A few of our runs were cut short a little bit and we had to deal with the weather too, which wasn’t great timings for our run plan, as I imagine was the case for most of the pitlane.
“All this work is extremely valuable going into Melbourne and we feel in a positive place. This is all the most important stuff when it comes to pre-season, this will be the last time I drive the car before Melbourne, to get things right and we are going to take from all of it, to put together the best-balanced car for the first race.”
Classified 11th through 18th, respectively, were Alonso (+1.352s), Tsunoda (+1.445s), Piastri (+1.473s), Norris (+1.534s), Bortoleto (+1.709s), Hulkenberg (+2.109s), Ocon (+3.723s), and Bearman (+5.024s).
This year’s tests mark the fifth consecutive year that Bahrain has been selected as the venue for pre-season running. F1 testing was first held in Sakhir in 2009, then in 2014, and they have now been hosted by the Kingdom each year since 2021.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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