Ted Kravitz left seriously worried by £5.5m-a-year F1 driver’s body language after first 2025 pre-season run

The 2025 Formula 1 season officially started on Wednesday as 10 drivers took to the track for the first time in Bahrain.

With each team only allowed to run one car at a time during pre-season testing, Lewis Hamilton and Andrea Kimi Antonelli were the most interesting drivers to take to the track for the first four hours of running at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Antonelli topped the timing sheets when the session ended, although very little can be read into the lap times being set at this stage.

However, Alex Brundle spotted Antonelli looking confident in his Mercedes during a particularly tricky section of the circuit which will encourage Toto Wolff.

Hamilton’s first long run in the 2025 Ferrari went without a hitch, with the biggest error coming from Red Bull’s new star Liam Lawson.

The New Zealander ran slightly wide out of the first set of corners, causing him to spin as he tried to take the fast right-hander.

Ted Kravitz was positioned in the pit lane throughout the session and kept a close eye on everything going on behind the scenes.

Sauber are one of two teams who have decided to completely change their driver line-up alongside Haas.

Nico Hulkenberg swapped behind the two teams but after his first session with his new team, he didn’t look particularly happy.

Ted Kravitz worried about Nico Hulkenberg’s body language after day one of pre-season

Asked about the Sauber team after the first few hours of testing, Kravitz said: “I hope Gabriel Bortoleto has a bit of a better run than Nico Hulkenberg has had this morning because if body language is anything tell by and I’ve followed Nico Hulkenberg for pretty much all of his F1 career, he hasn’t had the most happy session.

“He’s just got out of the car, it looks like they’re breaking for well, what would be a very early lunch, which is an hour and a half before the lunch break here in Bahrain, but at least for enough time for Hulkenberg to get out and to be debriefing with his engineer.

“I’ve got to say that looking optimistically, it seems to be that Sauber are steady at the moment.

READ MORE: Sauber driver Nico Hulkenberg’s life outside F1 from wife to height

“I haven’t been following the lap times too carefully, but that’s sort of a way of surviving and staying sane in Formula 1, don’t really follow the testing at least.

55 laps complete for The Hulk after the AM #F1Testing session ✅ 🇧🇭@HulkHulkenberg pic.twitter.com/twxbIyujay

— Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber (@stakef1team_ks) February 26, 2025

“Just getting out of the car, just seeing what mechanics are doing. There was some attention to the right-hand side of the floor, the front section of the floor, which some engineers and mechanics have been taking a look at.

“Hulkenberg talking to Mattia Binotto at back of the car, giving his debrief, which there weren’t many smiles, let’s just put it that way.

“There weren’t many smiles, a bit of a rubbing of the head, scratching of the chin, well, I think we can improve here and there.”

Sauber looking forward to 2026 and Audi takeover

Hulkenberg set the ninth-fastest time of the morning session, only outpacing Oliver Bearman who was on a very different run plan looking at his lap times.

Sauber – like every other team on the grid – swapped their drivers during the lunch break and put Formula 2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto in the car for his first proper run in the 2025 car.

Both drivers would have been well aware of how poorly Sauber performed in the constructors’ championship last year and how unlikely it would be that they would suddenly be competitive after the winter break.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Sauber from team principal to 2026 Audi future

However, Sauber will be hoping that when the regulations change in 2026 they’ll be a much more competitive outfit under the Audi brand.

Bortoleto has been tipped as a future world champion, but he might need to be patient until he has a car that’s capable of living up to those expectations.

Hulkenberg – whose contract is reportedly worth £5.5m-a-year – will simply be hoping to finally end his podium hoodoo, but Sauber are unlikely to be the team at this point that will help him end that increasingly long wait.