Fifth on debut and a slightly nervous car: Hamilton and Ferrari’s work on the first day of F1 testing. The program followed by Sir Lewis Hamilton in his first four hours of winter testing.

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari were inevitably the center of attention on the first morning of F1 testing in Bahrain. The seven-time world champion completed 70 laps of the Sakhir circuit, setting his best time at 1:31.834. Interestingly, that put him four-tenths behind his successor at Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Times and rankings in the first four hours of the new season mean little to nothing, but they do show the Scuderia improving by a second and a half compared to the 1:33.247 lap recorded by Charles Leclerc in last year’s morning session of the first day of winter testing.

Hamilton’s work on the first day of testing

Regardless of performance—since, as mentioned, it doesn’t tell us much—and even considering that the improved times are partly due to significantly cooler track and ambient temperatures, it is still interesting to analyze the work carried out by Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari on their F1 testing debut in Bahrain. The British champion followed a fairly standard program, initially focusing on short runs of three or four laps before moving on to mini long runs of around ten laps. Pending official statements, this is not an unusual approach for the first day of testing, with mechanics and engineers likely prioritizing aerodynamic mapping of the SF-25, studying its behavior under varying ride heights and fuel loads.

Most of the work was done on Medium C3 tires (marked by yellow Pirelli lettering but without a sideband), except for Sir Lewis’s first run in the morning, which was on Hard C2 tires (identified by white lettering and a sideband). His best time was set using the fourth of seven new tire sets—the third C3 compound—immediately on the first timed lap. Hamilton then attempted a second fast lap after a cooldown lap but aborted it and returned to the pits.

Τα stints που πραγματοποίησε ο Lewis Hamilton στο πρωινό σκέλος των δοκιμών. #F1GR

Lewis Hamilton’s stints from the morning session. #F1Testing #Day1 #AM @ScuderiaFerrari pic.twitter.com/SbRvfNXixV

— F1 Debrief (@f1debrief) February 26, 2025

Thanks to the always-precise data from the Twitter profile @F1Debrief, we can see that in the latter part of the morning, Hamilton and Ferrari switched to running with higher fuel loads and stints of nine or ten laps. The 40-year-old used three new sets of Pirelli C3s, completing 10, 10, and 9 laps respectively at Sakhir, with his best time of 1:36.278 coming on the fourth lap of the first of these sets.

It is, of course, impossible to judge performance and the nature of the work done, but it is undeniable that the Ferrari seen on the morning of day one in Bahrain appeared somewhat nervous. This led to Hamilton experiencing a few lock-ups and several corrections due to a rather “lively” rear end on corner exits. But there is still plenty of time before drawing any firm conclusions…