Leclerc shades Antonelli to lead morning session

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc ended the final morning of Formula 1 2025 pre-season testing in Bahrain with the fastest time, just 0.077s clear of rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

The Monegasque diced with the Mercedes driver in the early phases of the session at the top of the timing boards, with the two trading blows in the opening half-hour.

Antonelli led for a short while, before Leclerc punched in a 1m30.861s lap. And, although the Italian had got close with a 1m30.888s effort, Leclerc later raised the bar with a 1m30.811s on C3s – which remained untouched throughout a relatively serene morning session.

The only sticking point was a brief red flag within the final hour as a pane of glass broke free from the race directors’ box and broke in the pitlane. This shattered hopes of uninterrupted running, although the enforced hiatus was only 15 minutes.

After the flurry of lap-time gathering in the early stages, the wind picked up through the session and caused a handful of drivers grief. In particular, Lando Norris struggled to keep his McLaren on the road through the corners with crosswinds, going off at Turn 4 and reaching the service road, then aborted a lap with a wide moment at Turn 13.

The Briton nonetheless rallied and set the third-fastest time, 0.132s down on Leclerc’s benchmark.

Max Verstappen had the Red Bull RB21 to himself, and shook down a new nose-cone design en route to fourth overall in the timings. The reigning champion was four tenths away from the fastest time.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Isack Hadjar, RB F1 Team

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Jack Doohan was fifth, just three hundredths away from Verstappen, having also come a cropper on a handful of occasions as his Alpine failed to mesh with the blustery conditions in Bahrain.

Alex Albon was the only driver to set their fastest time on C2s to go sixth, while rookie Isack Hadjar was seventh with the highest number of laps logged – 73 – in the session.

As Lance Stroll was deemed “not 100%” ahead of the morning’s running, he and Fernando Alonso switched sessions – and the Spaniard ended his final pre-season preparations eighth in the order.

This put him a smidgen ahead of his protege Gabriel Bortoleto, who spent much of the morning in the garage as a technical issue precluded him from doing too much running. The Sauber rookie completed just 35 laps.

Oliver Bearman was at the bottom of the order, again seemingly backing off from showing Haas’ true hand on his longer runs, although his session was interrupted with shedding bodywork.

The rookie’s left-hand engine cover suffered a delamination and the cooling louvres snapped away from the overall assembly – which also featured a crack in the sidepod and flapping bodywork behind the rollhoop.