For Formula One’s 75th anniversary, all ten teams convened at the O2 Arena in London to kick off a new 24 race season. Hosted by actor and comedian Jack Whitehall, the event consisted of four musical acts from Kane Brown, mgk, Are We Dreaming (Brian Tyler), and Take That, as well as the reveal of the ten teams’ liveries for the 2025 season (on 2024 cars, though) and celebrating the global sport that is F1. As a launch event, F1 75 Live was a tremendous success, with over 4.5 million tuning into the livestream and 2.4 million viewing highlights. However, the compiling of all ten team launch events into one compromised the amount of effort that the teams could use to make these reveals, Ferrari specifically had their launch event with the 2025 car at Maranello the day after the reveal. Everyone’s 2025 liveries, painted on 2024-specification cars, were revealed at the event as well.
Today marks the second day of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, in which all ten teams get 24 hours across three days to test their new specification cars for the first time. Before this week, teams were only allowed to run Pirelli “academy tires” on 2024 cars or use previous cars (from two or more seasons ago) to allow their drivers to prepare. Testing will occur on Thursday and Friday from 2:00 pm – 11:00 pm local time.
The goal for teams during testing is to get as much mileage as possible to verify their performance characteristics as found in simulation data. Lando Norris of McLaren set the fastest time on day one at 1:30.430, 0.157 seconds faster than George Russell of Mercedes and 0.244 seconds faster than reigning champion Max Verstappen of Red Bull. Six full-time rookies join the grid this season, Andrea Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes set the fastest lap among rookies at a 1:31.428, with Liam Lawson of Red Bull setting a time of 1:31.560. Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto set times of 1:31.631 and 1:31.690 respectively, with Oliver Bearman of Haas setting the fastest time of 1:35.552 on a different running plan that uses harder tires. Most teams used the C3 tire, which offers balanced grip and longevity that is useful for many types running plans including brief endurance testing and aerodynamic validation. Haas used the C2 tire for their testing, which offers less grip and more longevity when compared to the C3, leading to lower absolute lap times than competitors.
The 2025 Formula One World Championship is expected to begin roughly two weeks from now in Melbourne, Australia for the Australian Grand Prix on March 14th. Only then can we find out the true standing of all teams and find out if we are in for one of F1’s greatest seasons yet.
