George Russell set the pace on the third and final day of F1 2025 testing at the Bahrain International Circuit.

It looked like reigning four-time World Champion Max Verstappen was going to end Day 3 on top, only for Russell to snatch that P1 spot in the closing moments, while Williams remained at the sharp end with Alex Albon claiming P3, making them a team to keep a close eye on in Melbourne.

George Russell P1 in Bahrain

After topping the morning leaderboard, Charles Leclerc handed the Ferrari over to Hamilton for the final session of F1 2025 testing in Bahrain, looking to ensure Ferrari finished on top.

Elsewhere, Lando Norris was out and Oscar Piastri in at McLaren, George Russell took over from Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes, Pierre Gasly tagged in at Alpine, Esteban Ocon at Haas, Yuki Tsunoda at VCARB and Nico Hulkenberg at Sauber.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Williams’ Alex Albon had the full day at the wheel, while Lance Stroll – after missing the morning session due to feeling unwell – was back in the Aston Martin for the afternoon as Fernando Alonso bowed out.

However, there was soon a delay to the track action as the bizarre red flag triggers continued. This time, a bus had shown up at the Turn 10 service road!

Thankfully, it was a strange yet brief interruption as the track went green again, Russell giving his old Mercedes team-mate Hamilton a wave as he passed him down the straight.

Sainz topped Day 2 in the Williams and Gasly soon set about trying to become the latest surprise leaderboard-topper, clocking a 1:30.567 on the same C3 compound used by Leclerc for his best effort, lapping 0.154s faster. He would make that gap half a second as he continued to find performance in the Alpine A524.

But, here came Russell on the C3s as he bettered Gasly’s benchmark by two-tenths, putting himself at the top of the timings after the first hour.

Gasly would decide that he wanted that P1 spot back, while Verstappen had now returned to the track, though understeer at Turn 13 and a subsequent shake of the head, followed by a lock-up and wide moment at Turn 10, suggested he had not quite yet got that RB21 in its sweet spot.

Hamilton was pushing with a set of C4s, but still had work to do on that leaderboard which is notoriously hard to trust in testing, the deficit six-tenths.

Verstappen though was starting to gel with that Red Bull and he shot up to P3 on the C3s, a tenth shy of Gasly, before taking over top spot with a two-tenth buffer established.

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With the track cooling off, the drivers were heading into better performance conditions, though race simulations remained the programme of choice for much of the field.

That soon no longer included Stroll, who after 37 laps completed for the day, handed the Aston Martin back over to Alonso, who himself was feeling a little under the weather with a cold.

“Following an initial session in the car today Lance subsequently felt unwell,” the team confirmed.

“Fernando will finish the test today.”

Alonso’s unplanned return to the track came just as the clock approached one hour remaining, with Verstappen again setting off an a push lap. But, Albon was doing the same in the Williams.

And the winner of that particular battle… was Albon. Up to P1 he went, 0.149s clear of Verstappen as Williams began to entertain the thought of topping back-to-back testing days.

But, with 40 minutes to go, Verstappen gave Williams more work to do if they wanted that achievement, using the C3s to return to top spot, 0.084s up on Albon.

Piastri went purple in the second sector, threatening to trouble Verstappen with half an hour to go, but he was forced to settle for the top three after falling 0.374s short.

Ocon meanwhile went for a very low-speed spin down at Turn 1, briefly triggering the yellow flags as he righted his Haas, while Verstappen was soon caught out and went spinning at the same corner.

No harm done for Verstappen, who looked like he would remain P1 until the clock hit zero, as Piastri’s purple second sector morphed into a lap good enough for P3 only.

All that was until Russell delivered a 1:29.545 on the C3s, pipping Verstappen by 0.021s to leave Bahrain on top ahead of the F1 2025 season-opener in Melbourne in two weeks.

Full F1 2025 testing Day 3 timesheet to come…

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