The competitive shape of Formula 1 2025 became clearer on day two of testing - but sorry Williams fans, the car that’s quickest so far isn’t really the pacesetter.
Here’s what we learned on day two of testing in Bahrain.
The first 'race' of 2025
McLaren won the first ‘race’ of 2025 as Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and Kimi Antonelli all completed full simulations on day two.
Norris was comfortably quicker overall, and his large advantage was noticed throughout the paddock. But how ominous this looked was potentially exaggerated by a tyre advantage in the final stint.
Either that advantage of over a second a lap was a flex of McLaren’s real, prodigious pace – or the compound step proved to be a significant one.
Whatever the reality, and whatever the real margin, it looks like McLaren has the edge.
Hiding in plain sight
The day started with Norris talking things down after topping the first day of testing, but it didn’t seem like lip service. His concerns about a rear instability that McLaren was working to cure were consistent with the car looking inconsistent on track.
But this seemed to be within the normal parameters of testing, as the longer the day went on, the better McLaren’s situation got. There was still some movement at the rear, in fact McLaren team boss Andrea Stella said that Norris’s first bit of feedback after his impressive long run was about that same instability - but it seems manageable.
In fact, more than that, Stella actually indicated that it was in keeping with what is required for a circuit like this. A certain degree of instability has to be there for a car to rotate and go round any corner! But here the alternative would result in terrible understeer at several turns.
McLaren feels that if anything it has made a decent step in its rear instability, so whatever the drivers feel in the car cannot be so dramatic. And it wouldn’t have been so low-profile on headline laptimes had Norris not aborted a late flying lap, which offered a little hint of what outright performance McLaren was capable of.
Norris wasn’t on course to go fastest, and needed a very good final sector to even go quicker than Leclerc’s Ferrari.
But he was only a couple of tenths away from Sainz after two sectors and that’s easily within the range of fuel or engine modes producing a big swing.
Surprise pacesetter's real status
The Williams had already stood out on day one as potentially the midfield car with the highest performance ceiling and caught the eye again on the second morning.
So, we were all set to hint at this being the under-the-radar threat from the midfield - but there’s nothing under-the-radar about going quickest! Hence Sainz going quickest leaving us a little annoyed, if for rather selfish reasons…
Obviously, we are not expecting Williams to be fastest for real. There was a strong hint from Alex Albon that Sainz’s lap was done running lighter than others as each team has its own programme and Williams wanted to check the tyres on low fuel.
But even if its potential is no great secret after day two, it may be that Williams can properly establish itself as the dark horse of this season after such a disappointing and difficult 2024.
The new Mercedes rear suspension Williams has switched to after using year-old components last year has given it some new characteristics and adjustments to get used to, but that process has seemed rather seamless.
It looks like the car has the capacity to catch the drivers out but both drivers are cautiously optimistic about its peak.
And a more refined balance is still perhaps to come on the final day, as Albon hinted some changes that are needed were better done overnight than for the Thursday afternoon session.
An Antonelli first
Kimi Antonelli may have done thousands of miles in old F1 cars last year, but Thursday evening in Bahrain was his first proper race sim on real racing tyres. And it was an effort that taught the teenage rookie and Mercedes a lot.
From Antonelli’s own perspective, having done all his previous mileage on demonstration Pirellis, it was a step into the unknown in learning about how best to manage the current F1 rubber.
Sure it was not a perfect outing – as there were times he pushed too hard, punished the tyres too much or ran off track – but that is all part of the learning experience that a rookie driver has to go through.
And at the end of it Mercedes was actually encouraged that, after doing some early crunching the numbers of the comparative race sims that main rivals McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull did, Antonelli’s pace was right up there.
The stint sim appeared to be pretty evenly matched with one done by Leclerc at the same time, and was ahead of what Liam Lawson had done in the Red Bull earlier in the afternoon.
The only car that seemed to be a step ahead was Norris in the McLaren, whose form appears to have left rivals in no doubt that the reigning constructors’ champion squad has made the step it wanted this winter.
Hamilton's Ferrari progress
It was evident on Thursday that Hamilton’s second day in the Ferrari was a good step forward and the wider enthusiasm that has accompanied his big move has not been tainted by any nasty doses of reality so far.
A positive appraisal is perhaps a little easy when the seven-time world champion topped the morning session and ended up second fastest overall, half a tenth quicker than team-mate Leclerc!
But beyond the big metrics in Hamilton’s favour today, he looked confident in the car and had a better response from it when we watched his final runs trackside, and the higher-fuel pace seemed competitive with other lead cars out at the same time.
Off-track, Hamilton did his most extensive media session with television crews since driving the 2025 Ferrari, and the messaging was very positive.
Hamilton reckons every day with Ferrari has been significant so far and the past month “couldn’t have gone any better”. He believes everything that happened, including his testing crash in the 2023 car, had to happen to build the right foundations.
The net result is, even before the last day of testing, Hamilton feels he and Ferrari have come a long way together in a short space of time, the car feels good on track and he’s “really enjoying” driving it.
That’s as strong a message as Hamilton can probably send at this stage of his adaptation, although the final day may offer a clearer idea of how that really translates into performance.
Edd Straw's trackside verdict
The one standout piece of advice based on watching trackside over the first two days of testing would be: don't drive a Sauber.
While its worst excesses from the first morning were tamed by set-up changes, it remains a visibly tricky car.
Under the floodlights today, watching at Turn 10, Gabriel Bortoleto struggled to get the car to do the same thing one lap after another. While the Sauber doesn't look miles adrift, it's not looking like a big threat in the midfield.
Up front, the McLaren appears relatively user-friendly despite Norris mentioning the rear-end limitation, while the Ferrari continues to have hints of understeer that offset the fact that at times it also looks very responsive.
The Mercedes also looks impressively consistent so far, but whether that would be the case if the temperature rose is another question.
Of the midfield contenders, the Williams is clearly the most impressive. While occasionally it tries to bite the drivers, it looks the most nimble of that group even though some of that could be down to fuel load.
While it's certainly not the quickest car, contrary to the timesheets, it's looking like the best bet to be heading the second group.
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How Alpine's self-inflicted drama is going
Just like Jack Doohan’s appearance at the F175 season launch event in London a week before testing, it hasn’t taken long for Alpine’s media activity at testing to be impacted by a self-inflicted drama.
Then it was Alpine having to stop a line of questioning about the pressure Doohan’s under and whether he may lose his seat to newly signed test and reserve driver Franco Colapinto.
This week it’s team principal Oliver Oakes implying there’s been a little too much attention put on Doohan before his rookie season, which means “he’s getting a bit of flak and it’s not fair”.
But the only reason Doohan’s getting “flak”, or questions about losing his seat, or scrutiny of any kind is because of Alpine’s own actions. And it’s telling that patience is wearing a bit thin already.
As for Doohan himself, he was able to keep quite a low profile in his press conference on day two as he shared it with Max Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc and Albon. So, unsurprisingly, attention was directed elsewhere.
And on-track he’s going about his work exactly as he needs to. It’s been a low-fuss test so far and he’s looked reasonably quick compared to Pierre Gasly - this is all Doohan can really do, as long as he actually gets the time he deserves to prove himself.
