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Lewis Hamilton ended his second day in the 2025 Ferrari with the fastest time in Bahrain testing as rain disrupted the morning session on day two of Formula 1 pre-season running.
The seven-time F1 champion's fastest lap came inside the final 45 minutes of the four-hour session and at the time put him half a second clear at the head of the order.
Hamilton was top anyway prior to that and had already threatened an improvement on his final C3 tyre run - the mid-range tyre in Pirelli's offering that will be the soft option at the Bahrain Grand Prix in April - but backed out of that run when he drifted out onto the kerb exiting the Turn 11 left-hander.
His eventual best of 1m29.379s was more than two seconds faster than the fastest time in the corresponding session last year - although that was heavily truncated as a loose drain was repaired - and half a second up on the benchmark day two time from 2024 (Carlos Sainz's 1m29.921s).
Our trackside take
Here’s what Scott Mitchell-Malm saw of Hamilton and Ferrari’s progress from trackside this morning. His full observations on all the cars are available in this video in The Race Members’ Club on Patreon - join now and get 90% off your first month
“I'm not going to pretend I was trackside for the P1 lap itself, although from what I could see on the onboard, it did look nicely committed and a bit more forgiving than the car yesterday - when I think Hamilton's fastest lap had quite a wide moment into the Turn 8 hairpin.
“But there's more value in what the car looks like away from those more headline grabbing times and when it comes through clearly with a bit more fuel on and with the tyres a little bit more worn, when you start to see the ills of the car come to the surface
“And I actually think this is where it was probably more encouraging than a headline time for Hamilton and Ferrari, because the car did just look a little bit more together than it did yesterday.
“I still don't think it's quite there. I think there's a little bit of a weakness on the front end sometimes - a little bit of understeer when Hamilton really leans on it - but not as much as yesterday.
"This felt like a car that Hamilton was a lot more at one with, which you would expect for his second morning in the car learning from what he did yesterday and what Charles Leclerc did.
"There was nothing from the Ferrari that seemed overtly worse than the Mercedes, for example. If anything compared to the Mercedes, it was a relatively more impressive stint to watch from trackside than it was yesterday when I would say the Mercedes looks slightly better than the Ferrari.
"The only uncertainty is I didn't quite get enough of a gauge of Hamilton compared to Oscar Piastri in the McLaren - which does look like the car to beat at the moment.
"What I would say is that the McLaren is a little bit inconsistent and it sometimes seems that the front or rear can give up a little bit.
"So McLaren’s in a similar kind of boat to Ferrari, potentially, and that's not necessarily a bad place for Ferrari and Hamilton to be given McLaren are effectively the early season favourite.”
George Russell - who briefly went faster than Hamilton as running resumed following an unusual mid-session rain shower - did improve thereafter, though the Mercedes driver was still 0.399s off his former team-mate.
With 71 laps, Russell completed the most tours of any driver in the morning session.
Sainz was the only other driver to lap within a second of Hamilton's best time, the Williams driver producing a best time of 1m30.090s.
That was eye-catching to an extent, though, as Sainz - who is in the Williams for the full day - was the outlier in being the only driver in the morning session to set his best lap on the harder C2 compound.
His running in the final hour was dedicated largely to long running on the same C2 tyre.
Rain had been in the air from the start of the session and was at its heaviest around the halfway point, which brought on-track running largely to a halt - save for Esteban Ocon completing three out-and-in runs on intermediate tyres for Haas, which is one of only two teams to have brought any form of wet-weather tyre to Bahrain alongside Aston Martin.
Pierre Gasly was fourth fastest for Alpine, with Fernando Alonso improving to fifth late in the session in the Aston Martin. His focus prior to that had been a long run on the hardest C1 compound.
As it did on day one of the test, McLaren waited until more than an hour into the session to complete a timed lap with Oscar Piastri as it worked through its performance programme.
💥 Contact between Hulkenberg and Piastri! pic.twitter.com/DMpcaFChg4
— The Race (@wearetherace) February 27, 2025
Piastri, who ended up seventh behind the Racing Bulls car of Yuki Tsunoda, was involved in the only on-track incident of note to date in F1 2025 testing when he made light contact with Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber.
Having set a personal best in the first sector, the McLaren caught the Sauber on the run downhill towards the Turn 8 right-hander and a combination of Piastri running deep and Hulkenberg dawdling (albeit off the racing line) on the corner exit meant the front-left corner of the McLaren made contact with the Sauber's right rear. Neither car sustained any significant damage.
Liam Lawson was eighth fastest but completed the fewest laps of all, just 28, and sat out more than an hour at the end of the session, with Red Bull even putting screens up in front of its garage - indicating it had taken the floor off the RB21.
Before that, Lawson - who like Sainz is also due to be back in the car after the lunch break - had just completed his most significant run, a 12-lap stint on the C3 tyre.
Hulkenberg was ninth ahead of Ocon, whose 69-lap total is likely to have largely comprised heavier fuel running - in keeping with Haas's focus both on day one and throughout the 2024 pre-season test.
Wednesday morning results
1 Hamilton (Ferrari) 1m29.379s (45 laps)
2 Russell (Mercedes) +0.399s (71 laps)
3 Sainz (Williams) +0.711s (44 laps)
4 Gasly (Alpine) +1.051s (40 laps)
5 Alonso (Aston Martin) +1.321s (45 laps)
6 Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) +1.414s (46 laps)
7 Piastri (McLaren) +1.442s (44 laps)
8 Lawson (Red Bull) +1.854s (28 laps)
9 Hulkenberg (Sauber) +2.078s (56 laps)
10 Ocon (Haas) +3.692s (69 laps)
