SAKHIR, Bahrain — Lewis Hamilton expressed enthusiasm for handling his new Ferrari after placing a close second in Formula 1 testing on Thursday, just behind Carlos Sainz Jr., the driver he replaced at Ferrari. Throughout most of the testing day, Hamilton’s morning session time held the top spot until Sainz, now with Williams, surpassed him by a mere 0.031 seconds.
Hamilton’s teammate at Ferrari, Charles Leclerc, posted the third-fastest time, trailing by 0.083 seconds. Meanwhile, Mercedes’ George Russell found himself in fourth place, 0.43 seconds behind Sainz. The pace set by Hamilton and Sainz was markedly quicker, over a second ahead, compared to the previous day’s fastest lap achieved by Lando Norris of McLaren.
“I am really enjoying the car. We’re slowly bonding, I think,” Hamilton remarked in a broadcast interview. “Today was about exploring my interaction with my engineer, but so far I really enjoy driving this car.” Satisfaction was echoed by Ferrari’s team principal, Fred Vasseur, who commented on the team’s solid performance during testing.
“So far, so good, but the first topic is reliability. It’s always a question at the start of the season, and it went well,” Vasseur noted midway through Thursday’s session. He explained that it remains challenging to accurately gauge a car’s performance due to unknown variables like the fuel levels in competitors’ cars during test runs.
Adding complexity to the testing, teams faced unexpected hurdles such as unseasonably cold weather and rare light rain in Bahrain. Only Aston Martin and Haas teams were prepared with wet-weather tires, anticipating the usual dry conditions of the desert setting.
There remains one final testing day scheduled for Friday before the season kicks off with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on March 16.