The younger brother of Charles Leclerc will take the place of Lewis Hamilton in the Ferrari SF-25 during the first practice session of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the final round of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship. In the post-season tests, Dino Beganovic will take the wheel.
Ferrari is set to complete its final mandatory rookie slot for the 2025 Formula 1 season, a requirement every team must fulfill, and it will do so at the very last event of the year: the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
On the Yas Marina Circuit, during the opening track session of the weekend, Arthur Leclerc — currently serving as a development driver for the Scuderia Ferrari team — will step into the car, replacing Lewis Hamilton for Free Practice 1.
This means Ferrari will field both Leclerc brothers, Charles Leclerc and Arthur Leclerc, on track at the same time in the same free practice session. It has happened before, but it remains a rare and special occurrence.
“Charles and I are really happy to be driving together again in the upcoming FP1 session; it’s very emotional to get into the car knowing he’s working from the other side of the garage. From a technical point of view, driving the car on track is always valuable for us drivers who mostly support the team from the simulator in Maranello, because it helps us provide better feedback to the engineers,” Arthur Leclerc said on the eve of the final Formula 1 race weekend of the season.
“My favourite part of the track is definitely the first sector. That’s where you really feel the aerodynamic load of the car the most: Turn 2 and Turn 3 are taken flat out and they’re extremely fast. It’s one of the sections where you truly experience just how quick a Formula 1 car can be, and I always have a lot of fun driving through it.”
Speaking about his responsibilities for the session, Arthur Leclerc explained that his objective is to gather as much information as possible in order to improve the correlation between on-track data and the numbers coming from the simulator in Maranello, which is used for race preparation as well as for the development of next year’s car.
“Physically, I have trained my neck the most — it’s the area that suffers the most from the G-forces — and I also did plenty of cardio work. From a technical standpoint, I spent a lot of time on the simulator to prepare myself properly. My job will be to give useful feedback on what we test and collect as much data as possible to improve the correlation between on-track performance and the predictions from the simulator in Maranello,” he explained.
Ferrari, like all the teams competing this season, will also take part in the young driver tests scheduled at Yas Marina the following Tuesday.
Dino Beganovic will be at the wheel of the SF-25 for its final outing of the season. Earlier in the year, he already completed two Free Practice sessions — in Bahrain and Austria — always in place of Charles Leclerc, gaining valuable mileage and experience in a Formula 1 car.
On the second SF-25, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton will alternate driving duties during the test day, running on the prototype Pirelli tyres designed for the upcoming season.
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