2025 F1 Pre-Season Test Day 1: Key Takeaways

The 2025 F1 season kicked off with the pre-season test in Bahrain, and at the end of the first day, Lando Norris was at the top of the standings. His British counterpart George Russell was in P2, followed by Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

The first day of the F1 pre-season test featured a crucial feature where the drivers and teams were not hesitant in pushing their cars very early in the day. So much so that by the time the day ended, the fastest time of the day was just around 1.3 seconds slower than the pole position lap in 2024.

So, what did we learn after the 8 hours (more or less) of running? Let's take a look.

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2025 F1 Pre-Season Test Day 1: What did we learn?

#1 McLaren seems to be faster than Red Bull

It wasn't necessarily about the lap time but the manner in which Max Verstappen's early lap advantage faded away compared to Lando Norris, which would worry Red Bull. There are two ways to look at this -- the first is that the team is going to start the season from a deficit, the second is that it's within the race that Verstappen can fight with.

The car does look much better in terms of handling this time around. It does appear that Red Bull has not tried to reinvent the wheel but instead focused on having the car in a decent working window where the drivers can push.

Of course, these are just the first impressions, but the Austrian team would be more or less fine with where it is for now.

#2 Top 4 teams are relatively close to each other

In continuation of the last F1 season, it does appear that even though a pecking order is starting to develop, there isn't much that separates the top 4 teams. Neither of them are fighting major issues when it comes to the car, and while there are relative strengths and weaknesses, it's not a massive gap between these teams.

We could potentially be heading for a repeat of what he had in 2024, where going into the weekend, it was very hard to predict who had the edge over others.

#3 The gap between the top 4 and bottom 6 has decreased

What was quite obvious very early in 2024 was that the gap between the top 4 teams and the rest was a bit too big. There was a noticeable gulf between the two, which made it two-tier racing for the most part.

This time around, it does appear that the gap between the frontrunners and the bottom 6 has shrunk. While the pecking order should still see the top 4 hold a commanding lead, the gap is not going to be as noticeable as it was last season.

#4 Lewis Hamilton is not comfortable with Ferrari at the moment

Amidst all the glamor and fanfare, Lewis Hamilton did his first meaningful run with Ferrari today in the F1 pre-season test. First impressions? Well, either the car was not as hooked up because that was the first time it hit the track or the driver was struggling to get on top of it.

The difference was noticeable. There was a sizeable gulf between how the car looked on track when Lewis Hamilton drove it and when Charles Leclerc was behind the wheel. Whether it is entirely down to the fine-tuning that the car essentially had during the F1 pre-season test is something we'll find out tomorrow, but for now, the 7x world champion might take some time to get used to the car.

#5 Haas is following a blueprint again

While the other nine teams were trying to find out what their respective cars can do on a performance run, Haas was busy sending its F1 drivers around on one long run after the other. The team used this method to great effect in 2024 when it was able to understand the tire behavior with the car and hence make major gains on race pace.

It's doing the same this time around as well. How good is the car over a lap? It does appear that this particular area is not too important for the American team for now as it continues the focus on mastering the long runs.