Six of the 10 Formula 1 teams will use this weekend's first practice session at the Bahrain Grand Prix to tick off a mandatory rookie practice outing, as Ferrari hands one of its juniors his F1 weekend debut.
Swedish driver Dino Beganovic will drive Charles Leclerc's Ferrari in FP1, his first F1 practice appearance, having made a low-profile test debut with the team back in January.
Beganovic will be juggling making his F1 weekend debut with the second round of his maiden full-time Formula 2 season.
Beganovic made an impressive two-round F2 cameo at the end of last year, finishing on the podium in Abu Dhabi. The 21-year-old swapped DAMS for Hitech for 2025, qualifying seventh for the opening feature race of the year in Melbourne that was cancelled due to bad weather.
He'll be far from the only rookie on track in FP1.
Ryo Hirakawa is returning for his second consecutive FP1 appearance, though this time it's with Haas after his abrupt departure from Alpine.
Mercedes reserve driver Frederik Vesti, whose last FP1 appearance came at the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - although he did do the post-season test last November - will take over George Russell's car.
Luke Browning (below) will drive Carlos Sainz's Williams in FP1, his second F1 practice outing, having made his debut in Abu Dhabi last year.
Felipe Drugovich will replace Fernando Alonso at Aston Martin in his latest FP1 appearance with the team. And Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa will step into reigning champion Max Verstappen's RB21.
Bahrain FP1 change list
McLaren: None
Mercedes: Vesti in for Russell
Red Bull: Iwasa in for Verstappen
Ferrari: Beganovic in for Leclerc
Williams: Browning in for Sainz
Haas: Hirakawa in for Bearman
Aston Martin: Drugovich in for Alonso
Racing Bulls: None
Sauber: None
Alpine: None
Why the Bahrain rookie surge?
Bahrain is an obvious choice for F1 teams trying to fulfil the increased quota of four rookie practice outings in 2025 - two outings in each car.
Firstly, all of the teams were there six weeks prior for three days of pre-season testing. Plus practice one takes place during the daytime in track conditions very different from qualifying and the grand prix.
And while it's far from impossible to crash, there's generally a low incident rate on the circuit with plenty of forgiving run-off for drivers learning the ropes.
Mercedes closest to quota
The rules state that practice-only rookies can't have started two or more grands prix. That means some of the 2025 rookies will automatically tick off some of the allocation.
Mercedes (Kimi Antonelli), Racing Bulls (Isack Hadjar) and Sauber (Gabriel Bortoleto) already satisfied rookie requirements on one side of the garage after Melbourne and China.
With Vesti replacing Russell this weekend, that means Mercedes will only need one more rookie FP1 outing in Russell's car in 2025.
As he made start number one in Abu Dhabi last year, Doohan's second outing, in Australia, counts as one of the Alpine's four rookie outings.
It gave Hirakawa number two in Doohan's car at Suzuka, so it will only need to fulfil the two rookie outings in Gasly's car.
Ollie Bearman making three F1 appearances last year makes him ineligible to satisfy the criteria here. It means Hirakawa's Bahrain run will be the first of Haas's 2025 rookie practice runs that count.
F1 2025 teams practice rookie runs
Mercedes - 3
Kimi Antonelli (Australia and China), Frederik Vesti (Bahrain)
Alpine - 2
Jack Doohan (Australia), Ryo Hirakawa (Japan),
Racing Bulls - 2
Isack Hadjar (Australia and China)
Sauber - 2
Gabriel Bortoleto (Australia and China)
Aston Martin - 1
Felipe Drugovich (Bahrain)
Ferrari - 1
Dino Beganovic (Bahrain)
Williams - 1
Luke Browning (Bahrain)
Haas - 1
Ryo Hirakawa (Bahrain)
Red Bull - 1
Ayumu Iwasa (Bahrain)
McLaren - 0
