Felipe Drugovich penned his first appearance of the 2025 F1 season for Aston Martin in FP1 at the Bahrain Grand Prix as one of six rookie drivers given outings this Friday.
Formula 1 rules oblige teams to run rookie drivers in each of their two cars at least twice per season. So, six crews took advantage of the Bahrain GP being a very familiar track and FP1 in Sakhir being an unrepresentative session for qualifying or the race to fill part of their quotas.
Aston Martin ran Drugovich in Fernando Alonso’s car for FP1, marking the 24-year-old’s sixth practice appearance for the Silverstone crew. The Brazilian has been Aston Martin’s reserve driver since September 2022 when he joined two days after dominantly winning the F2 title.
Drugovich finished FP1 with the 16th-quickest lap after 19 tours of the Bahrain International Circuit. His best attempt was a 1:35.198, with Drugovich just 0.082 seconds off the personal-best 1:35.116 time that Lance Stroll penned amid the full-time Aston Martin driver’s 23 laps.
Alex Albon startled Felipe Drugovich with Bahrain GP FP1 impeding incident with Luke Browning
Luke Browning also stepped in for Carlos Sainz at Williams, as Dino Beganovic took Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, Frederik Vesti replaced George Russell at Mercedes, Ayumu Iwasa replaced Max Verstappen for Red Bull and Ryo Hirakawa debuted for Haas in place of Oliver Bearman.
READ MORE: Who is Williams Driver Academy talent Luke Browning? All you need to know
But Browning’s day was not without some drama as the 23-year-old almost collided with his Williams teammate Alex Albon during FP1 at the Bahrain GP. The Briton had to take avoiding action when the Thai suddenly darted towards the inside of Turn 13 while Browning neared.
Albon was not on a push lap and appeared to be trying to get out of Browning’s way as the Hitech F2 driver finished an out lap. Yet he moved too late, and the FIA fined Albon €7,500 (£6.5k) for impeding Browning in an incident that startled Drugovich who was right behind.
Drugovich said on Sky Sports F1 (11/04, 16:39): “I was like, ‘OK, this is pretty bad I would say between teammates’. The speed delta was pretty big.”
The FIA fines Alex Albon £6,500 for impeding Williams rookie Luke Browning in Bahrain
Albon copped the €7.5k (£6.5k) for impeding Browing in FP1 for the Bahrain GP but Williams took responsibility for the incident. The Grove outfit failed to inform the 29-year-old that his rookie teammate was approaching as the engineers responsible were distracted at the time.
Williams’ admission of responsibility mitigated part of the penalty the London-born Thai got for the incident. It would have been cruel to proportion all of the blame on Albon who could not clearly see Browning approach at a much higher speed around a blind right-hand corner.
But it does act as warning, if anything, for Williams’ £6.5m-a-year Albon and the Grove team ahead of qualifying this Saturday when the two-time podium finisher and his engineers have to keep their eyes peeled to avoid a repeat incident when other drivers are pushing flat out.
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