© Getty ImagesTesting in Bahrain: Day 1 ReportIt’s been a long winter, and while we’ve had livery launches, shakedowns, and filming days, the 2025 season properly roared into life today as pre-season testing kicked off in Bahrain.
TheBullshadastrongstarttothethreedaysinSakhirwithLiamLawsonandMaxVerstappenbotheclipsingBahrainGrandPrixracedistancesastheyput132lapsonthenewRB21.
With just three days for teams to forge initial set-up directions with their new cars, and just as importantly, to try to get a read on which rivals have upped their game or dropped the ball, it’s no surprise that the morning session got off to a busy start.
And starting in chilly conditions, our newest racing recruit put in a solid shift over his four hours at the wheel of the new car. In all, the Kiwi got through 58 laps ahead of the lunch break and the New Zealander wasn’t afraid of exploring the limits of the RB21 either.
Liam’s quickest lap put him in P2 at the lunch break, 0.132s off Mercedes’ new kid Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who set his best time on medium-compound Pirellis. Behind Liam, Alex Albon was third ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, who made a good early impression in the largely snow-white Racing Bulls’ VCARB 02. Lewis Hamilton making his first pre-season test appearance with Ferrari was fifth, half a second off the pace.
Getting Strapped In.© Getty Images
I had so much fun out there today and it was so good to finally drive the new car properly and do some laps.
Liam Lawson"I had so much fun out there today and it was so good to finally drive the new car properly and do some laps. It feels okay but obviously it is very early days, so it’s very much about learning at the moment. For me, there is a lot more to come because I need to learn a lot moving teams but from a Team side we are just trying to learn about the new car, and optimise these testing days. We had a plan of test items, and we managed to go through the whole plan, which is always good. We go into tomorrow with a lot more running and a better idea of where to improve the car. It’s hard to tell where we are in terms of pace but the car feels good to drive and comfortable. Testing is just as important to me, as it is for the Team to learn about the car. It’s crucial to maximise these days before Melbourne.” - Liam Lawson
After the one-hour lunch break, it was Max’s turn at the wheel of the RB21, and the four-time champion was swiftly back into the groove, posting an early lap of 1:31.444 on hard tyres to sit fourth behind a trio of medium-tyre runners led by Mercedes’ George Russell.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc moved ahead of the Briton with a time of 1:30.878, and as McLaren’s Lando Norris and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly both moved into the top five, Max dropped back to sixth on the board.
With a little under two hours remaining, the session was red flagged, but not for any on-track mishap. Instead, a power outage plunged the garages into near darkness, and all the cars returned to the pit lane.
Max Is On The Move© Getty Images
As the sun set, the floodlights began to come on in sections, and with a little under an hour left, the session was given the green light once more. Max was quickly out on track, with hard tyres on board and with a wash of flo-vis paint splashed across the floor edge at the rear left of the RB21—a spot the team was interested in checking on the airflow of the Dutchman’s car. With the session extended by an extra hour to make up for the time lost to the blackout, Max then improved to 1:31:299 on hard tyres to climb to fourth place as Norris set a new benchmark of 1:30.430 on medium tyres. He then returned to the garage, where the crew set about making several setup changes, including to the front and rear suspension and to the floor.
Max was soon back on with a set of yellow-banded C3 medium tyres and more flo-vis on board, this time across the left floor edge. And with a purple opening sector, he climbed to P2 thanks to a lap of 1:30.674, which became P3 as Russell went a tenth quicker.
Max-imum Focus.© Getty Images
We don’t know pace yet but everything is working well and the car is doing what I want it to do.
Max Verstappen "From the driving I did today everything felt good. Only good surprises which was good. We don’t know pace yet but everything is working well and the car is doing what I want it to do. It is all in control and that is what we can hope for really to start of my testing. We are constantly learning and trying different things and will continue to do so. It is not about hitting the perfect lap but it is about working on our testing programme and learning what direction we need to push the car forwards to get it under control.” - Max Verstappen
That was the end of improvements for day 1 of testing, and after 74 laps, Max rolled the RB21 back down the pit lane to the garage where the crew waited to put the wraps on a hugely successful first day of the 2025 season. More to come tomorrow, with Liam in the car for the full day, so don’t forget to check back on redbullracing.com for the latest pre-season testing report.
“Today was a good working day with both drivers. With Liam in the morning, we tried to make some set-up changes to see how the car reacted to it and then in the afternoon when we changed to Max, we continued the programme with a different set-up change to see how we can understand the car for the next couple of days of Testing. We used two compounds, the C2 and C3, for both drivers, mainly to be able to do a consistent run and not focussed on extracting the most of the lap time but to understand how the car reacts.” - Pierre Wache, Technical Director
