Russell pips Verstappen to fastest time of final day of testing

George Russell set the fastest time on the final day of Formula 1 testing before the start of the 2025 season.

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However his best effort was two-tenths of a second slower than the quickest time of the test, set by Carlos Sainz Jnr yesterday.

Sainz’s team mate Alexander Albon was briefly fastest today after producing a 1’29.650 with a run on the C4 tyres. However Max Verstappen moved to the top with a quicker time on the C3 tyres, then Russell took that from him using the same tyres, with just six minutes remaining.

Oscar Piastri produced McLaren’s fastest time of the test to end the day fourth-fastest, with what looked like a conservative effort. That lap moved him ahead of Pierre Gasly, who ran a sequence of increasingly fast laps after the lunch break, and ended up fifth.

The day’s two sessions were each interrupted due to unusual incidents. The first occured almost three-quarters of an hour before the lunch break, when a pane of glass fell onto the pit straight from a flag gantry above.

Once the mess was cleaned up, the red flags were withdrawn, and Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Fernando Alonso rejoined the track. The red flags were hastily thrown again, however, when race control realised one marshal hadn’t returned to their safe position.

The second interruption was potentially even more serious. Shortly after the lunch break ended, with the track live once more, a bus entered the circuit at the run-off area on the outside of turns nine and ten.

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Three cars were on-track at the time and fortunately neither Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon nor Yuki Tsunoda ran wide at that corner. The FIA said it will look into the matter.

While most teams divided their running between two drivers, Albon and Verstappen did the day’s running single-handedly. The Williams driver covered the most laps of all, while Esteban Ocon impressively covered more than 100 in just the evening session, and even found time for a harmless spin at turn one.

Lance Stroll was due to begin the day for Aston Martin, but was unwell overnight, so Fernando Alonso took over his stint. Although Stroll did drive the car after lunch, he was still not feeling right, and handed it back to Alonso after 34 laps.

Lewis Hamilton covered just 47 laps in his last chance to test before the season begins. Ferrari stopped running more than half an hour before the chequered flag fell, indicating he may have encountered some kind of problem. He had been due to complete a race distance, which is 57 laps, and a qualifying simulation.

2025 Bahrain test day three lap times

Pos.	Car number	Driver	Team	Model	Best time	Gap	Laps
1	63	George Russell	Mercedes	W16	1’29.545		91
2	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	RB21	1’29.566	0.021	81
3	23	Alexander Albon	Williams	FW47	1’29.650	0.105	137
4	81	Oscar Piastri	McLaren	MCL39	1’29.940	0.395	85
5	10	Pierre Gasly	Alpine	A525	1’30.040	0.495	84
6	44	Lewis Hamilton	Ferrari	SF-25	1’30.345	0.800	47
7	22	Yuki Tsunoda	Racing Bulls	02	1’30.497	0.952	87
8	31	Esteban Ocon	Haas	VF-25	1’30.728	1.183	103
9	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	SF-25	1’30.811	1.266	66
10	12	Andrea Kimi Antonelli	Mercedes	W16	1’30.888	1.343	61
11	4	Lando Norris	McLaren	MCL39	1’30.943	1.398	57
12	7	Jack Doohan	Alpine	A525	1’31.239	1.694	61
13	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin	AMR25	1’31.699	2.154	34
14	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Sauber	C45	1’31.726	2.181	69
15	6	Isack Hadjar	Racing Bulls	02	1’31.761	2.216	73
16	14	Fernando Alonso	Aston Martin	AMR25	1’32.084	2.539	82
17	5	Gabriel Bortoleto	Sauber	C45	1’32.147	2.602	35
18	87	Oliver Bearman	Haas	VF-25	1’32.361	2.816	59

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22 comments on “Russell pips Verstappen to fastest time of final day of testing”

An Sionnach
28th February 2025, 16:17

Hopefully Williams is no worse than fifth fastest. Come on, Carlos!
1. Craig
  28th February 2025, 16:30
  
  fingers crossed
2. MichaelN
  28th February 2025, 17:25
  
  Would indeed be nice to have Sainz constantly fighting for the point scoring positions.
3. Edvaldo
  28th February 2025, 17:40
  
  It will be an improvement, as they used to be completely out of the picture without Albon, and he crashes quite often, so it happened a lot. Now they have two guys.
  
  If the car is good, then they’ll do the job, it’s the best pairing of the whole midfield.
Jere (@jerejj)
28th February 2025, 16:36

Based on these three days, I think the top 4 will remain unchanged, followed by Alpine-Williams-Aston Martin in any given order, & Haas, VCARB, Sauber.
My more precise outright pace order prediction for the season-opener is as follows:
McLaren (seems relatively easy pick)
Ferrari
Mercedes
Red Bull Racing (relatively easy among the first four looking at how the car balance seemed)
Alpine
Williams
Aston Martin
Haas
VCARB
Sauber (probably the easiest pick)
1. Craig
  28th February 2025, 17:00
  
  Can’t really argue with that, though the proof of the pudding will be in Australia.
2. MichaelN
  28th February 2025, 17:26
  
  Would be pretty bad for Aston. They’ve spent a lot of money, commendable to be sure, but it doesn’t seem to be translating into performance.
3. PeteB (@peteb)
  28th February 2025, 21:17
  
  As we saw last year, this generation of cars can be very sensitive to track temperature and track characteristic. The top 4 will be the top 4 but the order they’re in could be completely different in Australia.
MichaelN
28th February 2025, 17:22

Nothing against the kid, but this forced inclusion of a middle name to push the Kimi stuff comes across as desperate for attention. Nobody says Charles Marc Hervé Perceval Leclerc set a good lap. Just let Antonelli be Andrea.
1. Jere (@jerejj)
  28th February 2025, 17:43
  
  I couldn’t agree more. Everyone should always only have first & family name used in graphics for consistency’s sake or this rather was the case until Andrea Antonelli reached F2 & ultimately F1.
2. Oople ZERO
  28th February 2025, 17:48
  
  Of all the things for you to choose to give a hoot, you landed on “a driver who now prefers to use his middle name has his middle name included in media”…
  Wow.
3. Edvaldo
  28th February 2025, 17:58
  
  He can just do a Helio CastroNeves-like maneuver and everybody will be happy.
4. Johnny
  28th February 2025, 19:19
  
  If they could they’d use RAI.
5. El Pollo Loco
  28th February 2025, 20:09
  
  But his initials are AKA. It works out perfectly.
Roy Beedrill
28th February 2025, 17:25

I would put Ferrari behind Red Bull and Mercedes because of the Ferrari factor (it’s always worse than expected). McLaren easily fastest car. I won’t be surprised if Kimi Antonelli turns out to be a real deal after all, fighting with Lando and Max at the very front. Interesting to see how their relationship with George will go. Williams will be ahead of Alpine thanks to drivers.
Wer
28th February 2025, 19:19

Aston Martin look to be absolutely nowhere! How sad. I don’t think Newey can save their season if the car is garbage.
1. PeteB (@peteb)
  28th February 2025, 21:23
  
  I don’t think Newey will have any interest in trying to save their season. I doubt he’ll even get involved with the development of this year’s car…. His entire focus will be on 2026 because that’s where Aston Martin genuinely have a chance of becoming a front-runner.
BenjaminS (@benihana)
28th February 2025, 22:10

What I found bloody weird was that in three days of testing all cats I saw looked like all steering wheels looked skewed to the left on all the straights?! Anybody else notice that and anybody know why that would be?
1. BenjaminS (@benihana)
  28th February 2025, 22:18
  
  Cars not cats.
  1. Le Jimster (@lejimster82)
    28th February 2025, 23:17
    
    I noticed the same on the pit straight with several cars. I wasn’t sure if it’s an illusion or what.
w0o0dy (@w0o0dy)
28th February 2025, 23:15

Wache has been talking about at least 2 teams running flexi rear wings and or tilting rear wings to gain top speed without having to take off downforce. Guess Mercedes and McLaren will be facing an official protest if they decide to run those systems/components.
1. Tunde
  2nd March 2025, 3:50
  
  Wache mentioned McLaren and Ferrari as per PlanetF1