Lewis Hamilton is “really enjoying” being at the wheel of the Ferrari SF-25, a car which “is responding to my inputs”.

Hamilton’s update comes after Day 2 of pre-season testing in Bahrain, the seven-time World Champion finishing P2 on the overall leaderboard behind Carlos Sainz, while Charles Leclerc ensured that both Ferraris featured in the top three.

Lewis Hamilton feels Ferrari SF-25 ‘responding’

As Hamilton continues preparations for his Ferrari grand prix debut in Melbourne, he got behind the wheel of the SF-25 on Day 2 of Bahrain F1 2025 pre-season testing, completing the morning session before handing over to Leclerc for the afternoon.

Hamilton’s 1:29.379 was enough to top the timesheets at the halfway point, though he would be forced to settle for P2 overall after Sainz – the driver Hamilton replaced at Ferrari – went 0.031s faster in the afternoon.

Of course, testing times are notoriously unreliable with all the different run plans going on, and the important takeaway for Hamilton from Day 2 was the fact he feels Ferrari’s SF-25 “responding” to what he wants it to do.

“It’s a bit early to say but I’m really enjoying the car. We’re slowly bonding,” he said as per Motorsport.com.

“Yesterday was a so-so day. It was Okay. But yesterday we got through all of our run plan.

“We’re testing a bunch of things. So I’m not doing set-up changes or directing where I want the car to go. We’re just going through the motions.

“Today was a bit more of getting to explore a bit of my interaction with my engineer. So far I really enjoy driving this car.

“At the moment, there’s still room to explore more, and I’m just, bit by bit, eking out a little bit more each time.

“All the settings are so different. So even just brake bias and all those sorts of things, it’s much different to what I had in the previous place.

“It’s not necessarily unlearning what I did before, but kind of relearning this new way of working and where the car likes to be driven.

“It likes to be driven differently. And that’s a really fun journey learning that. But at the moment, it feels that we definitely feel the car underneath me.

“I feel that the car is responding to my inputs. Today was a positive day, and making those incremental steps with the set-up. There’s still more work to do.”

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Unusually cold and wet weather made its mark on the second day of track action in Bahrain, with rain falling in both sessions.

And Leclerc admits this makes it tough to “draw many conclusions” from the day.

“It was more tricky today on track because of what are unusual weather conditions for Bahrain, with cooler temperatures and even some rain,” he said.

“We ran through our planned programme, but with the conditions changing quickly, it was difficult to draw many conclusions.

“Tonight we are fully focused on analysing our data and preparing for the last day of testing tomorrow.”

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