Formula 1’s increasingly limited rules around testing are having an impact on Lewis Hamilton and every other driver racing for a new team in 2025.
Ferrari have done everything in their power since Lewis Hamilton arrived in the middle of January to give him the best possible chance of succeeding once the campaign begins at the Australian Grand Prix.
Hamilton has been doing long hours at Ferrari’s factory while living in his motorhome in Maranello.
The seven-time world champion has admitted in the past to not spending a huge amount of time in the simulator outside of race weekends but has been taking every opportunity to get used to the minutiae of Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car.
Away from the factory, Hamilton has been on track at Fiorano twice with thousands in attendance on each occasion, before spending several days at the Circuit de Catalunya in Ferrari’s 2023 and 2024 cars.
However, pre-season testing in Bahrain is the best opportunity for Hamilton to get to grips with the SF-25.
Hamilton’s body language has been very positive thus far and he will be quietly pleased that he managed to set the fastest lap on Thursday morning out of the 10 drivers on track.
Journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm was speaking on The Race F1 Podcast about Hamilton’s three days of running in Bahrain, and while they’re likely to be very positive, the inability to run alongside teammate Charles Leclerc will make it hard for him to know exactly how close to the limit he is.
Lewis Hamilton missing out on direct comparison with Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc
Mitchell-Malm was asked how crucial Hamilton’s testing in Bahrain is going to be and said: “Yeah, it’s very important.
“He has now had a decent experience of a few different Ferraris. He’s obviously tested and crashed the 2023 Ferrari.
“He has driven the 2024 car in a slightly different form as part of the Pirelli testing, it’s described as a mule car, it’s not quite as piecemeal of an F1 car as the term suggests but is obviously in a different form to how it’s intended to run in the 2024 season.
“Leclerc has done this TPC work as well, so it’s not like he’s gone in blind and Hamilton is benchmarked against himself.
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“When a driver benchmarks themselves against themselves they think everything’s brilliant because you don’t where the ultimate pace of the car is.
“There will still be caveats after this week but a lot of that uncertainty gets removed. The biggest thing he misses out on is the fact Leclerc obviously can’t run at the same time as him, there’s one car for each team, [and] they’ll be sharing it.
“You will get comparisons when they do run at the same time on different days, but a bunch of that stuff will still be unknown. Exactly where he stands at the end of this week I don’t think is necessarily reflective of the whole season he’ll have.”
Ralf Schumacher backs Charles Leclerc to have crucial advantage over Lewis Hamilton
Leclerc appears to be going under the radar during testing due to the arrival of Hamilton and the expectation on the seven-time world champion.
Although people outside of Ferrari won’t know how close the two drivers are after testing, they’ll have all the data to determine who came away from Bahrain in better form.
Ralf Schumacher believes Leclerc has an advantage over Hamilton that could end up being the difference this season.
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Leclerc will know if he nails his performances in qualifying once again, then Hamilton will have a very hard time beating him.
If he can learn from Hamilton’s telemetry how to be more consistent during race runs, then he might be the man to stop in 2025.
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