What can you expect from Preseason testing?

The wait is slowly coming to an end and the Formula one 2025 season is about to begin. The first race of the season will take place in Melbourne, Australia on the weekend of March 14th – 16th where 10 teams and 20 drivers will begin the battle for the constructors and drivers’ championship. But fans will not have to wait till then to see some on track action as from the 26th – 28th February it is preseason testing.

Preseason testing will take place at the Bahrain International Circuit where 10 teams will put their 2025 cars out on track and test their new designs over 3 days. From here they will be able to assess their pace and see if their new cars correlate to their data and work done over the winter break.

While the results from this weekend can only be taken with a pinch of salt, as nobody really knows the team running plans or fuel levels of the cars, it will still be interesting to witness the time sheets when they test their fastest laps. It gives some indicators to where the cars may be against their rivals but keep in mind that teams have in the past hidden their car’s true potential, so it won’t all be over when you see your rival team top the time sheets.

Fans are likely to witness fluorescent flow -vis paint or aerodynamic rakes on certain cars and these will be used to visualise and measure the flow structures around the car. You may also see mechanical changes to the car as they will do everything they can to maximise the car performance for each driver and ensure it’s reliability.

Teams have a limited time only to testing and the highly regulated event ensures that each team use the same amount of time to work on their cars. They will want to use every second of this time to make sure they can get the car where they need it to be competitively .

Testing this year will begin at 10:00 (Bahrain local time) till 19:00 with an hour lunch break from 14:00 – 15:00. Only one car per team is allowed out during each session so it is often the case that one driver will have the morning shift while the other driver will have the evening. Sometimes it may be that one driver takes the first day of testing and the second driver takes the second day – it all depends on the team schedules. Fans will be able to find out when their favourite drivers will take the wheel this week – usually through the team social media platforms.

Testing will be televised on F1TV Pro as well as certain channels depending on where you live. Fans who purchased tickets for the Bahrain Grand Prix will be able to watch testing with free entry to the track or you can buy tickets on the bahraingp.com website.