The 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix roared into life under a blazing desert sun on Friday, with McLaren’s Lando Norris seizing the spotlight in the day’s opening practice session at Sakhir.
As teams juggled run plans, rookie drivers, and the sweltering 35°C air and 47°C track temperatures, Norris, with a razor-sharp 1m33.204s on soft tyres, fended off Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.
From the outset, the session was anything but routine. Six teams opted to field rookies, fulfilling the season’s mandate to run young drivers in four FP1 sessions.
Among them, Williams apprentice Luke Browning was the fastest, the Briton clocking in a creditable P13, while Ferrari’s Dino Beganovic – replacing Charles Leclerc – followed just behind.
Thereafter, Felipe Drugovich for Aston Martin, Ryo Hirakawa for Alpine, Fred Vesti for Mercedes and Ayumu Iwasa for Red Bull filled in succession positions P16 to P19.
Norris set the early pace on medium tyres with a 1m35.249s, a lap that lingered unchallenged but trailed Carlos Sainz’s winter testing benchmark by six seconds.
Williams’ Alex Albon briefly nipped at the McLaren driver’s heels, shaving his gap to within a tenth before Sauber’s rookie Gabriel Bortoleto upended the order.
The Brazilian, bold on soft tyres, fired off a 1m34.628s to claim the lead at the halfway mark, signaling his intent as F1’s newest contender.
Gasly then joined the soft-tyre surge, but Norris answered emphatically, reclaiming the top spot with a lap that left the field scrambling.
As the clock ticked down, Ferrari and Mercedes held back on soft-tyre runs, focusing instead on setup tweaks.
Hamilton, driving a Ferrari sporting a heavily revised floor and diffuser, waited until the final moments to unleash his best effort, slotting into third and bumping Albon to fourth.
Haas’ Esteban Ocon, Sauber’s Nico Hülkenberg, and Alpine’s Jack Doohan followed, with Liam Lawson, Yuki Tsunoda, and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri completing a top 10 that defied expectations.
The session’s fragmented nature – driven by rookie runs, varied fuel loads, and the daytime heat – left more questions than answers, setting the stage for a pivotal second practice under the floodlights at 6pm local time, where teams will chase clarity in conditions closer to race day.
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