Andrea Stella: "We enjoyed a reasonable first day here in Bahrain, where we were able to complete our run plans as intended. This circuit offers an interesting challenge when it comes to tyre degradation, and we have gathered important data in this area.
"While our FP2 times looked encouraging, we know we still have some work to do to convert this into a strong Qualifying position tomorrow, which in turn will be critical when it comes to giving us opportunities on Sunday.
"As always, we will analyse the data overnight, see where we can make improvements and put ourselves in the best possible position to fight during Qualifying."
The first day of track activity in Bahrain saw Scuderia Ferrari HP get through a busy programme, involving three drivers, with Sweden's 21 year old Dino Beganovic, the talented Maranello Driver Academy youngster, driving Charles Leclerc's car in FP1 alongside Lewis Hamilton. On the job sheet was an evaluation of the first update package of the season, the main element of which was the floor of the car, which worked as expected and was then used on both cars for the rest of the day. Apart from that, the teams went through the usual tasks of fine tuning the SF-25, starting from the baseline data acquired during last February's test at this track. This was only of limited use because of the very big difference in temperatures and atmospheric conditions between then and now.
The first session was run in bright sunshine on a boiling hot track, with a temperature close to 50 degrees. Lewis and Dino started on the Hard tyre, not setting any relevant times as the grip level was very low. After a first run comparing configurations, Beganovic's car was also fitted with the new floor and both drivers continued with the hardest compound tyre as the track gradually rubbered-in. For the second part of the session both SF-25s were fitted with Softs on which Lewis set the third fastest time of 1'33"800 and Dino was 14th with a 1'35"055. Between them they completed 43 laps, 23 for Hamilton, 20 for Beganovic.
The second session started as the sun was setting and was therefore the most representative as it took place at the same time of day as qualifying and the race. Leclerc was back behind the wheel of his SF-25, out on track with Medium tyres, as was Hamilton. The Englishman started with a useful 1'32"157, while the Monegasque was getting to grips with the track, setting a time of 1'32"755. In the middle part of the hour, both cars went out on Soft tyres at which point Leclerc set the fourth fastest time of 1'31"045. Lewis set his personal best of 1'31"652 before taking on more fuel to run in race trim, as did Charles, who completed 27 laps, four more than his team-mate.
It was a positive end to Friday's practice sessions for the Bahrain Grand Prix, with George ending FP2 in P3, with Kimi in P5. FP1 was something of a false start for Kimi, with a water leak cutting his session down to just three laps.
Reserve Driver Fred Vesti was in George's seat for the first hour, one of two FP1 sessions the Dane will run in this year. Fred successfully completed the programme and provided some excellent feedback to the team to help support George and Kimi across the weekend. Fred finished in P18, with Kimi P20, in an unrepresentative session in which neither driver touched the Soft compound tyre.
George and Kimi were back in the car for FP2 and both showed good pace across the session. FP2 was completed on the Soft tyre, with a mix of both single-lap and long-run work completed. That gives the team lots of data to analyse and work through overnight. Tomorrow will see a slightly unrepresentative FP3 session in the early afternoon heat, before the cooler conditions arrive in time for Qualifying at dusk.
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: We had Fred Vesti in the car for FP1 and he did a great job for us. The programme was designed for our learning rather than setting headline times but when we correct for the Medium compound and fuel, the times were impressive considering that it was his first time in the W16. Unfortunately, we lost Kimi's car early in the session with a water leak. We were able to quickly identify the issue and resolved it for FP2 although it was a shame to lose the running.
The cooler conditions of the evening session meant the grip was higher and the car was more together. We managed a good programme with both drivers, electing to do two Soft tyres in the conditions more relevant to Qualifying. There's plenty still to work on. The track is much hotter than the test so keeping tyres in the window is more difficult both on single lap and long run but it's a decent baseline to work from and the car is at least quite consistent in its behaviour around the lap. As we've seen at the recent races, it's quite tight. McLaren look strong here but we expected that after testing but hopefully we can get ourselves into the podium fight.
Round 4 of the 2025 FIA Formula 1 World Championship began with Friday practice at the Bahrain International Circuit as teams prepared for Sunday's 57-lap Bahrain Grand Prix.
Having been announced as MoneyGram Haas F1 Team's new official reserve driver earlier in the week, Japan's Ryo Hirakawa stepped up for the first of four planned FP1 outings with the team - Ollie Bearman stepping aside for the session to enable Hirakawa to pilot the VF-25 for the first time having previously tested last year's VF-24 in Abu Dhabi's post-season test.
Ocon and Hirakawa ran the same run program in FP1 - starting with a baseline stint on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow tire. Swapping onto the Red soft tire for their next runs, Ocon set his fastest time of 1:34.184 (P5) with Hirakawa producing a best of 1:35.261 (P17) as he acclimatized himself to the VF-25. High-fuel runs on the medium compound wrapped up the opening 60 minutes of practice.
Conditions for FP2 prove more representative of Saturday's critical qualifying session and Sunday's race start - second practice commencing early evening at 18:00 local under the lights. Ollie Bearman returned to steering duties and sampled both the medium and softs over the course of the hour-long outing. The Brit produced a quick lap of 1:31.584 on softs to bag himself P9 on the timesheet before a distance run on the same compound through to the checkered. Ocon added another 27 laps in the evening session - the Frenchman setting a best lap of 1:31.870 on softs - to place P16, before sampling the medium on high-fuel to close out his day.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team ran a total of 93 laps on Friday across FP1 and FP2 - 20 from Hirakawa, 27 by Bearman and 46 from Ocon.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "Ryo was in the car for the first time with us in FP1, I think he struggled a little bit in terms of braking, but other than that I think he's done a very good job. His feedback was good, his attitude was brilliant - as professional as we saw in Abu Dhabi - so we just need to look into it before his next outing in Barcelona, what we can do to improve his feeling under braking. In FP2, Ollie was back in the car and straight away picked it up well. He had a slightly different brake issue, but he managed to put together one lap on soft tires, but on high-fuel because of the issue he struggled a bit so we really need to solve the issue tonight. On Esteban's side, I think he's reasonably happy but he needs to find a bit more performance. Overall, I don't think we're in a bad place, as far as Friday's go, but we need to solve the brake issue for Ollie and improve the car a little for FP3 and Quali."
The Zak Brown and Andrea Stella-run McLaren team topped the time sheet at the end of the first day of free practice for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were clearly quickest in FP2, the most significant session of the day, as it took place in similar temperatures to those the drivers will face tomorrow in qualifying and on Sunday in the race. Norris was also quickest in FP1 in 1'33"204. In the second hour, the papaya pair were the only ones to get under the 1'31" barrier, with Piastri posting a 1'30"505 and Norris a 1'30"659.
During last year's two hours of Friday free practice there was no sign of the C1 compound, but today it was a completely different situation. Seven teams sent both their drivers out on one of their available sets of Hard tyres, the exceptions being Red Bull, Williams and Haas.
The breakdown of laps per compound today is as follows: 184 laps (19.41%) for the C1, 355 with the C2 (37. 45%) and 409 with the C3 (43.14%).
Simone Berra: "As is always the case at Grands Prix where part of the programme is run under artificial lighting, there are some free practice sessions that are more useful than others when it comes to drawing conclusions for the rest of the weekend. We saw that today with only FP2 providing useful insights for tomorrow and Sunday.
"Of course, all the teams had a huge quantity of data to work from, as they and all the drivers completed three days of pre-season testing here. However, the conditions are very different now, with much higher temperatures, if you think that at 18.00 the track temperature got has high as 38° C, whereas during testing it never got above 19 °C.
"The most important point to take away from today is that we won't see a repeat of what we witnessed in Suzuka a week ago, even though the tyre compounds are the same. The track and weather conditions are very different and we saw from today's long runs that the level of thermal degradation on the tyres, not just on the rear axle but in some cases also on the front, was very high. It is therefore easy to imagine a two-stop race, with all three compounds potentially playing their part. It's no coincidence that, unlike last year, seven teams have already run a set of Hard tyres.
"We didn't see any particular issues in terms of tyre wear, with a very low level of surface abrasion."
