Formula 1 pre-season testing gave us a glimpse at what the competitive order might be like in the 2025 season.
McLaren are clearly the benchmark team with Lando Norris setting a blistering pace during his race runs on the second day of testing, while Lewis Hamilton also looked comfortable driving the 2025 Ferrari.
Mercedes is said to be second-best to McLaren based on GPS data, although the team was wary of drawing to too many conclusions because of the unusually cold temperatures at Bahrain.
Williams was one of the standout teams of testing, with Carlos Sainz setting the quickest time on the second day and appearing to get through all of the run plan without problems. Aston Martin’s test was troublesome, while Sauber appeared to be the slowest of all teams.
There was another team that caught onlookers’ eyes during the test, which could bode well for their chances in 2025. Journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm believes one driver ‘stood out’ the most when speaking on The Race podcast.
Pierre Gasly ‘metronomic’ during F1 pre-season testing
Alpine heads into the 2025 season off the back of their P6 triumph last season, largely thanks to both Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon’s ‘dreamland’ double podium at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The team had a relatively quiet test with most of the noise surrounding Jack Doohan, whose seat looks under threat from Franco Colapinto if he does not perform in the first six races of the season.
But Gasly’s impressive consistency didn’t go unnoticed, with onlookers praising him for his ‘identical’ laps during the race runs for Alpine which could see him add to his 463 points total in F1 this year.
“The impression I get from Gasly is that it’s proper Gasly but really, really comfortable within his team and the car is doing what he wants it to do. I think we might see our best of Gasly this season. He was metronomic on track,” said Mitchell-Malm.
“For driver and car combination, it was Gasly and Alpine that stood out to me, just purely because I watched him on long runs and said ‘This is identical, this could be replaying the image of him coming through Turn 10’ because its exactly the same lap after lap.”
Alpine could finish higher than sixth in 2025
Alpine is chasing a higher finishing position than sixth in 2025, with the team having last finished inside the top four in 2022 when they had Fernando Alonso driving for them.
Despite Ted Kravitz questioning Alpine staff’s ‘motivation’ this year because of their split from the engine plant in Viry Chatillon, 2025 presents an opportunity to improve.
READ MORE: All to know about Aston Martin F1 Team from team principal to lineage
Aston Martin has not got off to a great start and Racing Bulls has a rookie in Isack Hadjar, with their car looking roughly the same as last years in testing.
It’s difficult to gauge where Haas stands but they mainly focused on trackside operations during testing, while Williams looks like the biggest threat to Alpine for finishing inside the top five.
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