Russell pips Verstappen to go fastest on Day 3

George Russell gave Mercedes a positive end to the 2025 Formula 1 pre-season testing as he beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to the top spot on the final day in Bahrain.

Warmer conditions for day three at the Sakhir circuit meant even Russell’s leading time did not topple the lap set by Williams driver Carlos Sainz on day two.

At Ferrari, which led the morning session with Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton did not seem to enjoy the final half-day to testing – his SF-25 being off the road several times in his early long-run work, before he went into the garage after completing just 47 laps to not return.

Russell – in for Andrea Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes for the second session on Friday – did 91 laps, which included another full race simulation.

The only other driver from the leading teams to do this was McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who appeared to again have a clear edge over Russell’s W16 – albeit on a run that looked much tougher than Lando Norris managed on day two in temperatures around 4C higher.

Verstappen did not complete a full distance race run either, which means Red Bull leaves Bahrain as the only one of the typical top four squads in this position.

However, the team did a similar testing programme in Bahrain in 2024. Unlike that test, Verstappen did seem to concentrate on performance running late in the final session – along with Williams driver Alex Albon, Piastri and Russell.

They therefore shuffled earlier afternoon leader Pierre Gasly down to fifth on the day for Alpine.

Gasly had gotten ahead of Leclerc with a series of runs on the C3s that took the best time first to a 1m30.459s, then 1m30.282s, with just over half the final four-hour session remaining.

Over an hour later, Verstappen, who to that point had been struggling with the balance of his RB21 in rather mid-2024 fashion, blasted to the top spot with a C3-shod 1m29.844s and shortly afterwards went quicker on a 1m29.799s on the same compound.

With an hour of the test remaining, Albon used the C4s the drivers were struggling to warm up even on the hotter final day to nip ahead on a 1m29.650s, before Verstappen got back ahead with a 1m29.566s.

Piastri slotted in behind them with a time that would be 0.4s down on the day’s best time with just 30 minutes left, after which Esteban Ocon – who ended the day eighth for Haas with that team’s first performance run of the whole test set midway through the afternoon – spun strangely at Turn 1.

Verstappen also went around at nearly the same spot a short while later and afterwards, with just seven minutes left Russell – having barely completed his race sim – was sent back out with the C3s and he duly established the day’s benchmark time at 1m29.545s.

This is 0.197s slower than Sainz went on Thursday – with the elevated temperatures on Friday coming at the price of rear tyre life on push laps given the rough Bahrain surface.

Hamilton ended the day sixth fastest, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda, Ocon and Leclerc.

F1 2025 pre-season test results on Day 3