Lewis Hamilton is set to be Ferrari’s guinea pig in practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix as the Scuderia look to unlock more performance after their poor start to the 2025 term.
The Maranello squad have not maintained the form they displayed at the end of last year to sit 76 points shy of McLaren in the F1 constructors’ championship after three rounds. Ferrari only missed out on taking the 2024 teams’ title by 14 points after turning a corner at Monza.
How Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz fared after the former won the 2024 Italian Grand Prix is now serving as Ferrari’s encouragement for a potential turnaround in 2025. Hamilton and Leclerc are yet to bank a Grand Prix podium finish this year ahead of this week’s Bahrain GP.
Scuderia chiefs hope Sakhir can be this term’s Monza as the opening rounds of the 2025 F1 season have shown that the rear of Ferrari’s car is structurally too soft. So, the engineers in Maranello have produced four updates that Hamilton will get to test first in FP1 in Bahrain.
Lewis Hamilton will test Ferrari’s new floor and rear wing in FP1 for the Bahrain Grand Prix
It has long been expected that Ferrari will have a revised floor at the Bahrain GP as the pride of Italy try to fix the SF-25’s balance problems. But Corriere della Sera now reports that they will actually test out four updates in Sakhir with a new rear wing, diffuser and cooling parts.
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| Position | Constructors’ Standings | Points |
| 1 |
McLaren Racing |
111 |
| 2 |
Mercedes-AMG Petronas |
75 |
| 3 |
Red Bull Racing |
61 |
| 4 |
Scuderia Ferrari |
35 |
| 5 |
Williams F1 Team |
19 |
| 6 |
Haas F1 Team |
15 |
Hamilton will test their new floor in the opening practice session on Friday as Ferrari will run reserve driver Dino Beganovic in FP1 for the Bahrain GP. The Swedish talent will have the old floor to allow for a clear comparison and reduce the risk of damage to the new specification.
Additionally, Ferrari will run two rear wings after changing the design of their main plane for different load levels and a new diffuser with a different geometry. Yet after testing the parts in their simulator this week, Ferrari are still not sure that Hamilton or Leclerc will race them.
Ferrari believe their next two updates, starting with the parts Hamilton and Leclerc will test in Bahrain, must not fail if the Scuderia are to salvage their season. But the data from their simulator did not convince Ferrari that Hamilton or Leclerc will run them in the Bahrain GP.
Ferrari could give up on the 2025 F1 season to focus on the 2026 regulations if their updates fail
Corriere della Sera also notes that Ferrari’s chassis technical director, Loic Serra, and head of aerodynamics, Diego Tondi, are putting pressure on the team’s engineers to improve the SF-25. Leclerc got Ferrari’s best Grand Prix finish of 2025 in Japan with P4 but Hamilton was P7.
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Issues beyond their car’s performance have also limited Ferrari’s chances to score big points this year. Their strategic errors amid the late rain at the Australian GP saw Leclerc only come P8 and Hamilton got P10 before Ferrari’s first-ever double disqualification in the Chinese GP.
If their updates that Hamilton will test first at the Bahrain GP do not help to improve his and Leclerc’s results, any hope of mimicking last year’s turnaround from Monza might disappear with Ferrari considering stopping developing their 2025 car to work on the 2026 regulations.
