Despite bringing their first upgrade package of the season to the F1 Bahrain GP, Ferrari found themselves a long way off from the pace of championship leaders McLaren on Friday as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton opened up about what their expectations are for the remainder of the weekend.
It was Dino Beganovic, Ferrari junior and current F2 driver, who took over Leclerc’s SF-25 in the opening session of the weekend, as the Italian outfit allotted the first of four mandatory FP1 opportunities for rookie drivers in 2025.
Although the Swede ran the old floor at the beginning of FP1, he switched to the same specification as Hamilton’s halfway through the session and helped the team formulate a back-to-back comparison of its new floor.
After setting the third-fastest lap of the session in FP1, Hamilton finished the second hour of free practice in eighth place. Overall, the Brit concluded his Friday with 46 laps.
Meanwhile, Leclerc kicked off his weekend in FP2 with 27 laps around the Bahrain International Circuit. He clocked the fourth-fastest time of 1:31.045—0.540s slower than the benchmark set by Oscar Piastri—on the soft compound tyres.
Leclerc blames lack of grip and declares that McLaren are on a different planet
Reflecting on his FP2 session to F1TV, Charles Leclerc rued their lack of pace and admitted that it is frustrating to witness how the McLaren drivers are miles ahead of everyone else on the grid.
The Monégasque driver also referred to the significantly warmer track conditions in comparison to pre-season testing and stated that the lack of grip contributed to their struggles.
Moreover, Leclerc remarked that Ferrari would have to comb through the data overnight and introduce set-up changes to turn things around before qualifying for the F1 Bahrain GP takes place under the lights on Saturday.
“We’re just not fast enough. When we look at the McLaren, they are just on another planet for now.
“It’s annoying, but it’s the way it is. It actually motivates me to try and close that gap as soon as possible, but they are incredibly fast.
“It’s been a tricky session, because it’s so much warmer than the [pre-season] test, and obviously you go into a session expecting the grip that you had at the test and it’s completely different.
“We’ve got to readjust the car and there will be a lot of work during the night to try and turn the situation around tomorrow.”
Leclerc thinks Mercedes have similar pace but Verstappen is ahead
Asked if Ferrari can challenge Mercedes and Red Bull at the F1 Bahrain GP, Charles Leclerc reckoned that they are relatively close to the Brackley-based team in terms of pace.
In respect of Red Bull, the 27-year-old admitted that it was difficult to draw any conclusions. However, he surmised that Max Verstappen has a slight pace advantage over them given that he completed the second practice session with one fewer set of tyres.
“With Mercedes it seems that we are pretty much there.
“With Red Bull it’s a bit more difficult; I think Max [Verstappen] had one less tyre compared to us in FP2, so I think he’s probably a bit in front.”
Claiming that they have yet to maximise the full potential of the new upgrade package, Leclerc nevertheless sounded somewhat optimistic that they can make some headway tomorrow.
“I think there’s some performance still to be found on our side, maximising the car, the upgrade, and we’ll see where that leaves us tomorrow.”
Hamilton believes good long-run pace key to the weekend
Emphasising how low the grip was on the hard compound tyres in FP1 due to extremely high temperatures, Lewis Hamilton admitted that his feeling in the car improved in the second practice session of the F1 Bahrain GP after Ferrari had made some crucial changes to the set-up.
At the same time, the seven-time world champion highlighted the current shortcomings of the SF-25 and noted how inconsistent its behaviour is between low-, medium-, and high-speed corners.
Stating that they are attempting to fine-tune the balance, Hamilton also asserted that strong race pace can influence the outcome of the weekend given the highly abrasive nature of the circuit in Bahrain.
“It was quite difficult in the morning as always. With the temperature being so high, the grip was terrible on the hard tyre for the first run. Then it’s quite a big shock from hard to soft, which was much better. We made some changes and the car felt pretty decent in FP2.
“[It’s just about] consistency, just trying to put the laps together, having a car that’s easy to drive and that’s consistent through the lap. At the moment it’s a bit different between low, medium and high [speed corners], as you often have.
“We’re just trying to finesse it, trying to tweak it, and make sure that we have good long-run pace, because that’s where you need to be strong here particularly.”
Hamilton confirms new Ferrari updates are working
Regarding the upgrades that Ferrari arrived with at the F1 Bahrain GP, Lewis Hamilton confidently responded that they are working as expected.
Confirming that they have taken a step forward with the new floor aimed at increasing downforce and performance, the 40-year-old reiterated that they are focused on extracting its potential to make a positive difference in qualifying tomorrow.
“The upgrades are definitely working.
“A big, big thank you to everyone back home for working so hard on bringing the upgrades, because it’s never an easy thing. It’s a lot of work that goes on in the wind tunnel and a lot of work that goes on in fabricating and putting together these floors.
“It’s just good to see that we’re taking steps forward. We’re trying to now extract more from it and I hope we can make the right steps overnight to tomorrow.”
