Lando Norris (McLaren) has secured the best time in Formula 1 in the first free training for the Grand Prix of Bahrain 2025.
Even in daylight, the World Cup leader Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) referred to places 2 and 3 by 0.238 and 0.596 seconds.
The session was not too meaningful with regard to qualifying and racing in the Sachir desert. The teams in Bahrain had only tested in February, which is why the time hunt was not in the foreground at the beginning of the weekend. And: Norris ‘best time of 1: 33.204 minutes remained well behind Carlos Sainz’ (Williams) best time in the official tests (1: 29,348 minutes).
So names appeared in the top 10, which will probably no longer be in qualifying: Esteban Ocon (Haas), for example, in 5th place, Nico Hülkenberg (clean) in 6th place, Jack Doohan (Alpine) in 7th place or Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) in 8th place.
With Max Verstappen (Red Bull), George Russell (Mercedes) and Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), three of the fellow favorites were not even at the start. They handed over their cockpits to Friday test drivers. Of which, Luke Browning (Williams) was the fastest, as 13th with 1.681 seconds behind.
Hairy situations around Albon
Alexander Albon (4th/Williams/+0.724) was involved in two hairy situations within a few minutes. First into a potentially insecure release when he crossed the “Fast Lane” when driving out of the Box Yuki Tsunodas and the Red Bull Pillot had to avoid to avoid a collision.
And a few minutes later on the track when he himself was on a fast round and in front of him the two Friday testers Felipe Drugovich (16./aston Martin/+1.994) and Luke Browning. Albon was already past Aston Martin, but with Browning, his own teammate, it would have crashed over a hair. “Wow, that was scarce,” said Drugovich, who was able to observe the situation first row on foot.
Interesting: At the end of the run, Albon complained about the performance of his brakes. These are unpredictable. The next time he drove out, he reported: “Something is wrong with the clutch. I lost performance.”
Which Friday drivers were in action this time?
Because Formula 1 was only on winter tests in Bahrain in February, the first free training was a logical way to complete a so -called rookiet test. Because every regular driver who had to leave out the session can fall back on the experience of the test. And the set-ups are already still optimized for Bahrain than for routes on which not tested.
Ferrari: Dino Beganovic (14th) instead of Charles Leclerc, Red Bull: Ayumu Iwasa (19th) instead of Max Verstappen, Mercedes: Frederik Vesti (18th) instead of George Russell, Aston Martin: Felipe Drugovich (16th) instead of Fernando Alonso, Haas: Ryo Hirakawa (17th) instead of Oliver Bearman, Williams: Luke Browning (13th) instead of Carlos Sainz