Charles Leclerc was fastest during the one-day post-season test at the Yas Marina Circuit, the Ferrari drier was a tenth faster than his teammate Carlos Sainz who Made his debut for Williams. However, both drivers were a second off the pole time on Saturday night during the Pirelli tyre test for experienced drivers and young drivers test.<\/p>\n
Leclerc\u2019s fastest time came right as the sunset as he pushed George Russell off the top spot followed by out-going teammate Sainz. Like in FP1, Leclerc once again partnered with his younger brother Arthur who ended his day fourteenth. Sainz was first out and topped the times for most of the day until the sunset, when the Ferrari went fastest just before the end of running with a 23.510<\/p>\n
Two days after his final outing for Ferrari, Sainz made his official debut for his new team. Tuesday was Sainz\u2019s second outing in Williams’ FW46 having gained an initial familiarisation in a private test with his new team on Monday at the circuit as the team completed their second of two permitted ‘filming’ days this year.<\/p>\n
In an unbranded uniform the Spaniard completed a hundred and forty-six laps during the eight-and-a-half-hour test. Russell put his Mercedes third over a tenth behind Sainz as the top three completed Pirelli tyre testing with the times larger than seen during qualifying on Saturday. On his return to Sauber Nico Hulkenberg was fourth as he spilt the two Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Hulkenberg was nearly two-tenths faster than Kimi Antonelli, the 2025 Mercedes driver fastest of the rookies as the post-Hamilton era began for Mercedes. Lewis Hamilton was blocked from testing for Ferrari as he began his farewell tour of Mercedes bases across Europe. Antonelli sharing duties with fellow reserve Frederik Vesti, after coming down with flu over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Pirelli did not set out their own fixed programme, with teams instead able to approach the test how they saw fit, meaning regular set-up changes and a host of different high, medium and low-fuel runs on various tyre compounds.<\/p>\n
The rookies, they used the same compounds selected for the Abu Dhabi race weekend, with every driver given two sets of C3s, four sets of C4s and two sets of C5s, while the race drivers ran the homologated versions of Pirelli\u2019s 2025 tyres.<\/p>\n
Ayumu Iwasa put his RB sixth just over a tenth ahead of McLaren IndyCar driver Pato o\u2019Ward. In the second car, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri shared duties, Norris sixteenth a hundredth ahead of Sauber Gabriel Bortoleto with Piastri a tenth behind.<\/p>\n
Times from Tuesday’s test are all but meaningless given there is no exact information over which of Pirelli’s six tyre compounds teams have been running when, and that is without considering fuel loads and other parameters.<\/p>\n
What was a theme of every test this year continued with no drivers causing red flags due to mechanical issues or breakdowns. Jack Doohan continued his preparations ahead of his debut as a full-time drive in 2025, he was nearly a hundredth ahead of fellow Alpine Academy driver Paul Aron.<\/p>\n
After sitting out the Grand Prix, Esteban Ocon made his debut for Haas going just over a quarter of a second behind Aron the Frenchman seven hundredths faster than Luke Browning. The Williams driver split the two Haas\u2019 as he went six hundredths ahead of Ryo Hirakawa\u2019s Haas.<\/p>\n
Liam Lawson was a tenth and a half ahead of Arthur Leclerc and Red Bull junior Iasck Hadjar. Lawson completed the most laps a hundred and fifty-nine just under three race distances<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s race winner Norris was half a tenth behind Hadjar as he spilt the Red Bull\u2019s and he was nearly a tenth ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, who made his debut for the senior team ahead of Bortoleto and Piastri.<\/p>\n
Jak Crawford was nearly two-hundredths faster than Felipe Drugovich in the Aston Martin. On his return to Mercedes Valtteri Bottas was twenty-second eight hundredths ahead of Antonio Fuoco.<\/p>\n
Testing resumes in Sakhir, Bahrain at the end of February.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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