F1 testing: What, if anything, did we learn?

What conclusions can we draw from F1 pre-season testing?

Formula 1 pre-season testing is in the books.

Did we learn anything?

Testing data is always viewed with some skepticism, with good reason. Teams run different programs, use different fuel loads, and the full picture is often not shown until the opening race of the season.

Let’s dive into the data to see what, if anything, we learned.

McLaren’s race pace opened some eyes

At first blush, McLaren’s time in Bahrain had some fans worried about their pace. Oscar Piastri posted the team’s fastest lap — a 1:29.940 effort that placed him eighth overall — and Lando Norris’ best effort of 1:30.430 saw him finish in P13, one spot behind Alpine rookie Jack Doohan.

But if pre-season testing times are to be taken with a grain of salt, that goes two-fold for times over a single lap. With uncertainty over fuel loads, engine modes, and more single lap times remain something of a black box. Even if taken at full value, they only tell a portion of the story.

But one portion of testing data that did catch the eyes of many in the paddock was a series of longer race simulations McLaren ran with Lando Norris on Thursday. As we outlined on Saturday Norris put together stints of 18, 16, and 18 laps during that session, covering 52 total laps.

Those lap times are in the below table, courtesy of Fast F1:

As noted here and elsewhere both Ferrari (with Charles Leclerc) and Mercedes (with rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli) ran some race simulations of their own, and Norris’ lap times over those runs were ahead of both drivers.

Andrew Benson, writing at BBC Sport concluded that if you extrapolate these simulations to a race, “[Norris] would have won the ‘race’ by more than 30 second, and was on average more than 0.5 seconds a lap quicker than his rivals.”

Ted Kravitz at Sky Sports F1 concluded that McLaren “have two tenths of a second per lap on the field.”

Will that continue in Melbourne in two weeks? That remains to be seen. But McLaren’s race pace certainly turned heads last week.

Ferrari looks to be on McLaren’s rear wing

For the second season in a row, Carlos Sainz Jr. topped the timing sheets, posting a time of 1:29.348 in the Williams FW47. This comes after setting the standard a year ago in Ferrari’s SF-24.

Right behind Sainz? The Ferrari pair of Lewis Hamilton (1:29.379) and Leclerc (1:29.431).

Both drivers sounded rather upbeat following testing, in particular Hamilton.

“Overall, it’s been a great few days and we’ve made some strong progress as a team,” said the newest Ferrari driver. “We had to finish a little earlier than planned today, and the weather has been hard to predict all week, but that’s how testing works sometimes, and we’ve managed to gather a lot of good information to build on before the season starts.

“The whole team has done an incredible job, and I’m so excited to get to the first race in Melbourne. I can’t wait to go racing with them.”

“We want to fight for both championships, as we know we have two drivers who can do it, and the mood in the team is very positive. We will continue to work hard to be ready in two weeks’ time for the start of the season,” said Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur.

Furthermore, diving into the race simulations Leclerc ran on Thursday as outlined above, the gap between Ferrari and McLaren was not massive, even factoring in all the relative unknowns that come from testing, as shown in this graphic from F1 Tempo:

In addition, according to both qualifying and race simulation data from F1.com, while McLaren led the way in both categories Ferrari was right behind them:

McLaren may look like the favorites coming out of Bahrain, but Ferrari is right behind them.

Uncertainty at Red Bull

Testing was a bit of a mixed bag for Red Bull.

Both qualifying and race simulation data from F1 indicate that they sit third in the pecking order, behind McLaren and Ferrari. Max Verstappen banked some longer stints on Friday that, while not full race simulations, showed him within striking distance of the lap times Norris posted on Thursday. In addition, Verstappen’s fastest time of the week, set on Friday, was topped that day only by George Russell and was fifth-fastest of the week overall.

Still, there were some reliability issues as they endured a water pressure failure on Thursday. Beyond that, the search for the right setup in the varying conditions saw the RB21 spend a great deal of time in the garage, and as a result, they completed only 304 laps over three days in Bahrain, the lowest of any team.

That also cost them a true race simulation run in Bahrain.

Following the final day of testing Red Bull Technical Director Pierre

Waché had this to say: “It was not as smooth a test as we expected and the team expected, but it is better to find some problems here than later down the line and it is why we are here, to understand the car.

“I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development.”

Certainly, there is time for Red Bull to get the RB21 where they want it, and having Verstappen absolutely helps. But they might have more work to do than they hoped coming out of Bahrain.

Keep an eye on Williams and Alpine

As we drop down to the midfield, two teams certainly left Bahrain with some positives to show for their efforts. As noted earlier Williams saw Sainz post the fastest lap time of the week, and the duo of Sainz and Alexander Albon banked 395 laps over three days, fifth-most of any team.

“Once again, the FW47 was mostly reliable with only a few minor issues affecting the program,” said Chief Engineer Dave Robson following testing. “This puts us in a good place for the opening races of the season.”

Beyond that, simulation data from F1 put Williams fifth in both race pace, and qualifying pace, which is a marked step forward from where they were a season ago.

Then there is Alpine. One of the most insightful comments from last week came from Pierre Gasly during one of the FIA Drivers’ Press Conferences. When they were asked if they could get a sense of whether they had a good car within the first five laps of testing, Gasly remarked that “[i]t took us no laps last year to know it was going to be challenging.”

What a difference a year makes for Alpine.

Gasly posted the ninth-fastest lap time of the week, with rookie Jack Doohan not too far behind him in P12. Qualifying simulation data from F1 has Alpine sitting sixth, just behind Williams.

While race simulation data was not as favorable for Alpine — they dropped to eighth — this was still a step forward for them when compared to how they started 2024.

“It has been a good and productive three days for the team here in Bahrain. A lot of hard work has gone into this test both behind the scenes at the factories in preparation, as well as in the execution trackside by our dayshift and nightshift crews. Testing is never easy to fully understand where you stand in the pecking order,” said team boss Oliver Oakes following testing. “We’ve really focused on ourselves this week and I am pleased with the things we have learnt and how we have progressed across the three days. We have a good base to work from and a solid foundation to start the season. Both drivers completed plenty of laps, which is important for them and also good to get mileage on certain components to test reliability. Now, we’re looking forward to debriefing back at base next week before attention turns to racing in Australia.”

Nothing at all is what we learned

Finally, here is the dark secret.

We might not have learned a thing.

F1 pre-testing remains one of the sport’s major black boxes.

With teams running different programs, different fuel loads, utilizing different engine modes, and engaging in all sorts of practices that cloud the true picture, it is often difficult to draw hard conclusions from pre-season testing.

For example, a year ago Red Bull seemed like the class of the field, but we know how that turned out.

The caveat to all the caveats, however, is the big-picture context of the 2025 F1 season. 2026 brings a completely new set of technical regulations, and the window for developing 2025 challengers may close before we know it. As former Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner explained to me last week, in his view most teams will turn to their 2026 challengers by May.

“I actually spoke with some people which are doing this in F1, in the moment which are faced with this, because I think everybody will shift to the ‘26 car in May because that is the future,” said Steiner last week. “If you develop until May the ‘25 car, you still bring parts until the middle of the year, because until you develop and then you have to make the parts, obviously that takes time.

“So I do not think that there will be a lot of development going into a ‘25 car after May, beginning of June. Except somebody may be fighting for the world championship, you know, if the battle is close, then obviously you decide, ‘[h]ey, we need to go a little bit longer [with developing the 2025 car] we win this championship.

“But I think everybody making their plan in the moment, I would say in June we are on 95% or 97% [the] ‘26 car.”

Team with their eyes on a title may develop their 2025 challengers deep into this year, but others may quickly turn the page to the 2026 campaign. That might mean that what we saw in Bahrain, for some teams at least, will be closer to a finished product than we usually see.

Still, we might not know what we truly know, until the lap times start counting for real.