Lando Norris set the quickest time in the opening day of testing for the 2025 Formula 1 season.
The first day of running, split into two four-hour sessions, was interrupted by over an hour due to a sudden loss of power at the track. The Bahrain International Circuit operators issued a statement saying the outage was caused by a failure in an external substation.
Norris, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc and George Russell were among those whose running was interrupted by the problem. However they regained most of their lost time as the teams agreed with the FIA and Formula One Management to extend the session by an hour.
Aside from the power cut, the session ran without any significant problems. Andrea Kimi Antonelli was quickest before the lunch break, setting a 1’31.428 in his Mercedes.
When the second session began, teams were slow at first to send their cars out, and the track remained silent for around 20 minutes. McLaren were particularly slow to join in, Norris remaining in the garage for well over one-and-a-half hours after the session restarted.
The quickest times were set by the drivers who ran in the second half of the day. Russell ended the test a tenth of a second shy of Norris, with Verstappen another tenth behind. Leclerc took fourth ahead of his former team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr, now driving for Williams.
2025 Bahrain pre-season testing day one lap times
This article will be updated.
| Become a RaceFans supporter and
Formula 1
Browse all Formula 1 articles
