BEHIND THE HEADLINES – What could testing tell us about the year ahead?
The test in Bahrain was the beginning of the new year, though it doesn’t give a real picture of the order it has become a good guide to the overall form. The big headline I think was the same as last year good idea of what may happen but as we know it’s only a guide until we get a couple of races into the season and after the grand prix, we will have the full picture.
The feeling from what I saw and read in the last few days is that this hype about McLaren’s form and strength at the end of 2024 has continued but how big of tan advantage? That is the unknown going into the new season, over the last month what I’ve seen of both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri has been this Mercedes dominance-era confidence.
Digging into the data, if they truly did a full race simulation, it appears they have the strength and competitiveness. Throughout this article take into account we are doing educated guesswork as we don’t know the fuel loads, engine modes and other settings, also its hard to compare car to car.
But if we assume from day two the ‘Grand Prix’ simulation (57 laps or 191.530 mi) between Norris, Charles Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli, Norris would have comfortably won the race by half a minute plus as he was half a second faster than his nearest rivals.
While it’s only testing, the analysis says he would have won the fifty-seven-lap Grand Prix as mentioned by him being on average half a second faster. It would have also been a one-two with Piastri being two-tenth a lap faster having a similar margin during his stint over Russell. With the caveat being Piastri and Russell did those times in mixed conditions, colder, windy and wet Thursday.
That means they were faster because higher air density increases both downforce and engine performance, and wind is bad news for the cars’ sensitive aerodynamics. I doubt in a real Grand Prix it would be as big of a margin as that once strategy and other factors are taken in. Also Team principal Andrea Stella said he “would be very careful” about concluding Norris’ run, suggesting the usually cool conditions in Bahrain “were in a sweet spot for our car – they were conditions our car enjoys, cool, not much wind”.
Stella’s point is that the conditions perhaps masked some of the weaknesses McLaren has had in Bahrain in recent years – the track’s combination of mainly slow corners and traction-dominated layout do not play to the car’s strengths, especially in the heat that is normally typical in the desert.
But there is another way of looking at that. If McLaren can be this quick on a circuit that does not suit their car, just how good could they be at Melbourne, which on paper is much more their kind of track?
While McLaren is the favourite, both in my view and its rivals, I still think Ferrari looks to be their nearest rival, but I think are questions about how big or how small the gap is at the start of the season. Ferrari in my view look fast but they will be in the mix, we have not seen them in race mode.
Hamilton I over the last few weeks I’ve not seen him so fired up and he has been testing a lot but his first official test in the 2025 car, did not end on a particularly happy note – he stopped running early, and a planned race-simulation did not happen.
Leclerc said the race run against Norris “was a really important run to understand where we were lacking compared to them”. Hamilton showed no sign of being checked out or ageing but this was probably the biggest question in testing, while the performance for both drivers looked strong on both qualifying and race simulations.
A handful of off-track moments during the first morning made it a slightly scrappy beginning in Bahrain for Hamilton, but he set the second-quickest time of his second outing and afterwards said he was “really enjoying” the SF-25 and “slowly bonding” with it.
However, in perhaps the first setback to his preparations, that never quite materialised with his afternoon running featuring only forty-seven laps, ten laps short of the race distance in Sakhir, and Ferrari finishing the test slightly early behind the screens in their garage.
But if we go into this season expecting a close fight or the field closing up, we can expect an epic fight. In my mind, their remains questions about Red Bull as we saw in the second half of last year, they dropped away. Their testing programme makes it even harder to try and figure out where they start the season.
Neither Max Verstappen or Liam Lawson did a race distance, though if we look at Lawson’s 75% of a race distance, he was on average a second a lap slower, over a course of a grand prix it is 0.017 a lap which will add up. As we saw last year the Red Bull likes clean air and you wonder if that is sandbagging or genuine pace.
Race simulations are the easiest way to understand what is going on because teams can’t really hide the drop in pace caused by a full tank of fuel. There still appeared to be what Verstappen described last year as a “disconnect” between him and the car.
It lacked front grip in some places, and rear grip in others – just as it did in the team’s period of struggle last year. Technical director Pierre Wache admitted the team had concerns saying, “I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times.”
Mercedes, I don’t think are in the mix to be fighting with McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull given how tight it is, they are not far off but could lose out to the close nature we saw in testing and in the second half of 2024. Certainly, they have a stronger base to start he season, but on the race run Piastri was on average two-tenths faster on his first stint, but it narrowed to half a tenth on the second.
It is hard to understand the full picture as while we see the lap times and tyre compounds we don’t get things like the GPS tracing etc and that will come. The feeling is that Mercedes has a bit of work to do or needs a crazy race which we will get at some point, to challenge for wins. But I think that like last season they start the year having made a good step, but it’s not enough at this stage to be in what I’m expecting to be another close season.
But you need to wonder if we are going to see one team surge ahead, I think that given the regulations going into the fifth season with the cost cap and fourth year of the technical regulations, I think we expected it as it was always the aim of these regulations.
The other stand out or surprise of testing was Williams who could firmly be in the midfield battle, Carlos Sainz ended day two fastest thanks to his qualifying sim, and Alex Albon lead much of day three before the ‘qualifying hour’ at the same time as in April, though it will be different as we’ve said be very different in terms of conditions.
But Williams team boss James Vowles does not believe the midfield will have significantly closed on the big teams. Again surface impressions might be misleading. Vowles said “Top four will be the top four. [There is a] large gap between them and the midfield.”
Williams looked in decent shape judging by the headline lap times, while Aston Martin, who had a quiet test, appeared as if they may be in trouble.