How fast was Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton? F1 pre-season lap time analysis

168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton has completed his first F1 pre-🌠season with Ferrari ahead of his debut race with them in a fortnight’s time.
The seven-time world champion has had one-and-a-half days to get up to speed with Ferrari’s 2025 challenger in Bahrain before his first race with the Italian team at the season-opening Aꦜustralian Grand Prix on 16 March.
Despite his final day ending early when Ferrari curtailed his running prematurely before he was able to🅰 complete a planned race simulation, it was a largely positive test for Hamilton.
The 40-year-old Briton ended up sixth in the timesheet on Friday, 0.8 seconds off former Mercedes teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell who set the pace on the third and final day.
Hamilton was nearly half a second faster than new teammate 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Charles Leclerc on the final day of testing but he did use a tyre compound one step softer and had the bett🌃er of the track conditions in the afternoon session, while Leclerc’s best lap was set in the morning.
Hamilton second-fastest overall
Perhaps more encouraging is the fact that Hamilton’s outright fastest lap, set during the final ho♊ur of Thursday morning’s session with C3 Pirelli tyres, was the second-quickest of the entire test.
Hamilton posted a 1m29.379s which put him second on the best lap times, just 0.031s behind Williams’ 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Carlos Sainz, the driver he has replaced at Ferrari.
It was also four-tenths quicker than wh𒁏at Leclerc managed on the same C3 compounds on the afternoon of day two, 𒁏through light drizzle lingered in the air throughout Thursday, while temperatures were unusually low for Bahrain.
Hamilton’s best lap was🐲 also quicker than Ferrari’s Q3 lap from qualifying at last year’s Bahrain Grand Prix, but slower than the 1m29.165 outright fastest lap Leclerc produced in Q2.
Meanwhile, Fer🙈rari’s best lap from 2024 pre-season testing in Bahrain was 1m29.931 set by Sainz on day two. In contrast Leclerc’s was a 1m30.322s. Both were set on Pirelli’s C4 tyre.

Hamilton’s quickest 🐼Mercedes lap time from Bahrain’s 2024 test was a 1m31.256s on day two. Overall, it was the 10th fastest-time set during the testౠ.
Naturally, lap times would be expected to be quicker this year given the teams have had several months to continue to develop their cars heading into what will be the final🌄 season before a major reg🔥ulation overhaul.
These sorts of comparisons are all subjective, particularly given that pre🍸-season testing is a typically unreliable indicator of actual competitive performance.
Factors such 🗹as fuel loads and engine modes🗹 - which have a major impact on performance - are not revealed by the teams, who try to keep their cards as close to their chest as possible on the eve of a new season.
Ultimately, we will not truly know where Hamilton ✃or Ferrari stand until the season ꦦopener in Melbourne in two weeks’ time.
Nevertheless, it is still interesting to consider how Hamilton fared following⛄ such a blockbuster switch after 12 seasons with Mercedes.
Full Bahrain F1 2025 pre-season testing results
2025 F1 Bahrain Pre-Season Testing - Best Lap Times | ||||||
Pos | Driver | Nat. | Team | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
1 | Carlos Sainz | ESP | Atlassian Williams Racing | 1m30.955s | 1m29.348s | |
2 | Lewis Hamilton | GBR | Scuderia Ferrari HP | 1m31.834s | 1m29.379s | 1m30.345s |
3 | Charles Leclerc | MON | Scuderia Ferrari HP | 1m30.878s | 1m29.431s | 1m30.811s |
4 | George Russell | GBR | Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team | 1m30.587s | 1m29.778s | 1m29.545s |
5 | Max Verstappen | NED | Oracle Red Bull Racing | 1m30.674s | 1m29.566s | |
6 | Alex Albon | THA | Atlassian Williams Racing | 1m31.573s | 1m29.650s | |
7 | Kimi Antonelli | ITA | Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team | 1m31.428s | 1m29.784s | 1m30.888s |
8 | Oscar Piastri | AUS | McLaren F1 Team | 1m32.084s | 1m30.821s | 1m29.940s |
9 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | BWT Alpine F1 Team | 1m31.353s | 1m30.430s | 1m30.040s |
10 | Lance Stroll | CAN | Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team | 1m31.949s | 1m30.229s | 1m31.699s |
11 | Liam Lawson | NZL | Oracle Red Bull Racing | 1m31.560s | 1m30.252s | |
12 | Jack Doohan | AUS | BWT Alpine F1 Team | 1m31.841s | 1m30.368s | 1n31.239s |
13 | Lando Norris | GBR | McLaren F1 Team | 1m30.430s | 1m30.882s | 1m30.943s |
14 | Yuki Tsunoda | JPN | Visa Cash App Racing Bulls F1 Team | 1m31.610s | 1m30.793s | 1m30.497s |
15 | Isack Hadjar | FRA | Visa Cash App Racing Bulls F1 Team | 1m31.631s | 1m30.675s | 1m31.761s |
16 | Fernando Alonso | ESP | Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team | 1m31.874s | 1m30.700s | 1m32.084s |
17 | Esteban Ocon | FRA | MoneyGram Haas F1 Team | 1m33.600s | 1m33.071s | 1m30.728s |
18 | Gabriel Bortoleto | BRA | Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber | 1m31.690s | 1m31.057s | 1m32.147s |
19 | Nico Hulkenberg | GER | Stake F1 Team Kick Sauber | 1m32.169s | 1m31.457s | 1m31.726s |
20 | Oliver Bearman | GBR | MoneyGram Haas F1 Team | 1m35.522s | 1m34.372s | 1m32.361s |
Hamilton admits Ferrari ‘have work to do’

Speaking before he drove the SF-25 on Friday, Hamilton did concede that Ferrari “de﷽finitely have some work to do to improve” before the new season begins in Australia.
"It'sཧ hard to k🌳now what fuel loads everyone is running so you have to take everything with a pinch of salt,” Hamilton explained.
“[McLaren] won the ♏constructors' [title] last year. We expect them to be one of the quickest if not the quickest. As with Red Bull, they dominated for many 🙈years. We've definitely got some work to do to improve.”
But after a difficult final few years with Mercedes꧂, Hamilton ꦑsaid being at Ferrari is the “most positive feeling” he has had in a long time.
“I've learned t❀hat you really can't judge too much from the first outlook,” he said. “I definitely think in past years, particularly in the previous generation of car, it was much easier to know where you 🔯stood quite early on.
“But I would say this is the most positive feeling that I've had in a long time. That’💖s all I can really say for now.”
Hamilton also provided♛ more details on where he is at in the process of fully adapting himself to Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car and the Italian team.
“I still feel that there's still quite a bit to come,” Hamilton added. “Fortunately, I got to drive the 2023 car. So, I've really🐷 been able to compare to the 2024 and the 2023 car and see where they've progressed, the problems they had on those two cars and how they've improved into this one.
“Obviously I didn't get to do the test ⭕at the end of the year, so for me, I started relatively late compared to others that have come before me – like Sebastian [Vettel] started here in November [2014], so he had a good two months, whereas for me it's been this [one] month period that I've had.
“So, a lot has been crammed in, in that time. But I personally like to just jump in the deep end and figure it out. That's what we're doing, but of course we're going through the processes and I feel like in this period of time we've built a realꦇly good foundation.”

Lewis regularly aꦯttends Grands Prix for mahbx.com around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.