They say it’s ‘only testing’, but 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli impressed by setting both the fastest time and clocking the most laps on the first morning of F1 2025’s first session.

The Mercedes prodigy brought in to replace Lewis Hamilton looked assured at the wheel of the Silver Arrow, bar a few lock-ups as drivers pushed on in gusty conditions.

Hamilton also looked right at home with his new employer Ferrari, setting the fifth quickest time and running 70 laps.

Liam Lawson was second-fastest in the Red Bull despite a spin. He was followed by Williams ace Alex Albon with the third-fastest time.

Scroll down for our quick round-up of F1 2025 pre-season Day 1’s morning session.

F1 2025 pre-season testing Day 1 – morning session

Pre-season testing for the 2025 F1 season has now got underway in Bahrain.

Half the drivers took to track for the morning sessions on Day 1, with Lewis Hamilton spearheading the Ferrari efforts.

Joining him on the circuit was also new Red Bull signing Liam Lawson, Hamilton’s Mercedes replacement Kimi Antonelli and Ollie Bearman for Haas.

Though all teams got in a decent amount of running across the first hour, fast laps were hard to come by as drivers ran through systems checks and aero rakes to collect data.

Lawson recorded the fastest time after an hour and a half with a 1min 32.036sec. For reference, Max Verstappen‘s pole time at the 2024 Bahrain GP was 1min 29.179sec.

Both Oscar Piastri in the McLaren and Hamilton were caught out by the gusts which have increased across the session, each car losing the rear end and going off-track.

Liam Lawson also suffered a moment for a similar reason, before Alex Albon recorded a 1min 31.573sec in his Williams.

A piece of bodywork appeared to then fly off Lawson’s Red Bull on the pit straight, while Sauber‘s Nico Hülkenberg looked unimpressed during debriefs with his team after getting out the car.

The RB21 looked difficult to keep a handle on throughout the session – Red Bull’s Kiwi then summed up his session by losing the car exiting Turn 2 into Turn 3, finishing up sideways on the straight.

With his Pirellis completely flat spotted, Lawson had to come in immediately.

Mercedes’ latest prodigy Antonelli would take himself to the top of the timesheets on a 1min 31.428sec.

With reliability looking strong, several drivers clocked up a full race distance, the young charges snaring the most. Antonelli had the most with 77, Yuki Tsunoda the next on 76 and Ollie Bearman chalking 72.

See the full morning lap times below.

F1 2025 pre-season testing Day 1 morning session times

F1 2025 pre-season testing Day 1 – afternoon session

With gusts picking up in the afternoon, teams were reluctant to send their drivers out on track.

Isack Hadjar was the first driver to roll out after over 20 minutes, followed by reigning champion Max Verstappen.

No driver was immediately troubling the top of the timing sheets, as cars ran beneath overcast skies.

Alpine’s Pierre Gasly will be hoping to emulate last year’s late rise from his team, and got close to Antonelli with a 1min 31.443sec early on, and Verstappen clocked a time just a thousandth slower.

Hadjar then emulated his Red Bull colleague Lawson by spinning in the esses section, but carried on instead of pitting for new tyres.

Mercedes continued to look assured as Russell then put himself top on 1min 31.082sec, with Gasly 0.2sec behind.

The Red Bull still looked a handful in the hands of Verstappen, much like it did with Lawson, the Dutchman running wide on several occasions.

Meanwhile it was all quiet over at McLaren, with Lando Norris donning a one-off testing crash helmet but not having much time to use it – after almost two hours 2024’s runner-up hadn’t yet set a timed lap.

A 1min 30.878sec registered by Charles Leclerc brought the Monegasque to the front, as Norris finally got out and registered third-quickest time.

Issues emerged at Red Bull, as burning oil smoke was reported to be coming from Verstappen’s car in the pits.

With just under two hours to go in the session, a circuit-wide power cut meant the red flag was brought out to stop all running.

Proceedings only got going over an hour later with 50min left on the clock – but now light rainfall had moved in.

Still several cars got back out on track, with drivers keen to rack up the laps in race runs.

Drivers radioed in concerned about the intermittent showers, but pressed on – Norris blew away all pre-season cobwebs bout going 0.45sec faster than Leclerc.

The session was then extended by an hour, but not all present could take advantage – Verstappen’s car was in bits in the garage as the team analysed its RB21.

Minutes later though the reigning champion was back on track, and at the 56min-mark a 1min 30.674sec put him second.