George Russell put in a final push lap to go top of the times for day 3, with his lap just over two hundredths quicker than Max Verstappen’s in P2. Alex Albon ended the day third quickest with a time just over a tenth off Russell’s, meaning Williams have finished in the top three for the last two days of running. Carlos Sainz also set the fastest lap time of the entire test, with Russell’s lap today not quicker than the lap of 1:29.348 set by the Spaniard on day 2. 

With testing now concluded, what did we learn from day 3 and from the test more widely?

Power Hour Delivers

As is often typical of the final day of pre-season testing, the last hour of the day became largely dedicated to some performance runs. Albon went first, delivering a lap in the mid 1:29s on the C4, softer medium compound that was later bested by Verstappen in the RB21 on the C3. This time stood as the fastest for a while, as Tsunoda, Ocon, and Piastri put in their best laps of the day before George Russell went quickest with just under seven minutes left on the clock.

The C3 compound will be the soft tyre when the teams and drivers return to Bahrain in April for the grand prix, making some performance runs valuable even if the conditions in April are likely to be significantly warmer.

Ferrari’s Test Ends Early

Ferrari’s first two days were positive, as Lewis Hamilton made his public debut on track in red and spoke positively to the work they had been doing – focusing on correlation, data gathering and familiarisation with the SF-25. Charles Leclerc had been running a similar run plan to Lewis, which ran smoothly though he was cautious not to draw any excessive conclusions about performance.

Today, Leclerc was in the car first and was able to complete 66 laps, setting the fastest time of the morning. But as Hamilton took over the running this afternoon, the smooth theme of Ferrari’s test so far went slightly awry. He began a run plan of qualifying simulations on the C4 tyre, setting a fastest time of 1:30.345, before switching to a high fuel, long run on the C3 tyres. However this simulation was curtailed by an “anomaly on the telemetry”, according to the team, resulting in their afternoon running ending after just 47 laps.

Even with this issue the overall feeling for the Scuderia is positive, but Fred Vasseur, team principal, feels they will have to wait until Melbourne to find out their true place in the order given the unusual conditions in Bahrain.

“If we look at the hierarchy of previous years, what we saw here was not the same as in qualifying a week later, under the same conditions,” he said. “We will go from 10-15 degrees on the track to the 45 we will have in Australia, so in Melbourne, it will probably be a whole different story.”

Aston in trouble?

Aston Martin are one team who may be leaving Bahrain feeling flat with their progress versus their expectations. They sit ninth in the order for total laps completed by the teams over the three days, having added just 82 to their total today, bringing it to 305.

Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso split the driving duties today due to illness. Stroll “wasn’t feeling a hundred per cent overnight” according to the team and so Alonso took over the morning’s running. Stroll attempted some running this afternoon and completed 34 laps, but after he felt unwell again, Alonso ended the day.

Switching driver setups outside of the planned hour break between sessions eats into a team’s run time, but the conditions also threw off how representative Aston Martin felt this test would end up being for the rest of the year. As such, their focus was less on race simulations, and instead on “learning about the car, the new aero package, checking all the systems and gathering data from a huge number of experiments and test items”, in their team principal Andy Cowell’s words.

While they insist they have gathered significant data and made progress in terms of drivability, they entered this test perhaps having built an expectation that they could challenge the front of the midfield this year. After such a lack of consistent running, this is an uncertainty.

Red Bull are a big unknown

Another team whose progress is largely unknown is Red Bull. Their three days of running were scheduled to allow Lawson and Verstappen each a full day in the car and each went by fairly quietly. Lawson’s full day on Thursday saw him complete just 91 laps with a reported water pressure issue keeping him in the garage for some of the day and the rain impacting his ability to push when he was on track.

Lawson concluded that these were “teething gremlins” and that there was “extremely valuable” work completed ahead of his top team debut. But from the outside, this lack of running left us with questions over where they may sit in the order versus the other big three teams which it was hoped would be answered by Verstappen’s full day in the car.

But despite completing some performance runs and having a “decent day”, Verstappen failed to complete a simulated grand prix, meaning there are still uncertainties over their longer run pace versus their rivals.

“I think it wasn’t bad, but at the same time there is still a bit of work to do,” he said. “However, it is what we expected and we will keep on working and keep on trying to improve and, hopefully, as we go into [the first Grand Prix in] Melbourne, we will learn a bit more by going through all the data and see where we are at.”

Red Bull turned up to Bahrain with a car extremely visually similar to its predecessor, choosing to optimise the existing concept with the hopes of having a better baseline to develop from. Pierre Wache, their technical director, said they had worked on exploring its potential at this early stage of the year and had “more or less achieved” an understanding of its response to different setups.

“I am not as happy as I could be because the car did not respond how we wanted at times, but it is going in the right direction, just maybe the magnitude of the direction was not as big as we expected, and it’s something we need to work on for the first race and future development,” concluded Wache.

McLaren Go the Distance

It’s perhaps not bold to say that McLaren have had a strong pre-season test, with a clear air of confidence about the team and their running over the three days. Norris led the way on day one and said he’d had “no surprises” from the MCL39, despite there having been a number of developments and changes made to the car over the winter. Establishing a consistent baseline allowed the team to push different avenues and setups to find the limits of the car and “see what [they] can do with it”, in Norris’ words.

Norris’ afternoon running on day 2 attracted the headlines after he completed a full simulated 57-lap Bahrain grand prix at a very similar time of the session to Leclerc’s Ferrari and Antonelli’s Mercedes, with all three drivers covering the C1, C2 and C3 compounds.

Norris was quickest of the three on all compounds, but his final stint on the C2 was over a second a lap quicker than his competitors. Though this was done on a compound softer than Antonelli or Leclerc’s final stint and in cool conditions, his average lap over the full run was around five tenths quicker than Antonelli or Leclerc’s.

This apparent pace comes with the caveat from McLaren team principal Andrea Stella that the conditions were unusually cool, both on track and in the air, which he says can only prove that the MCL39 fares well in these specific circumstances.

“The indications here in Bahrain seem to say that the car interacts well with the tyres but in a very specific, I would say special, regime like we have in these days here in Bahrain,” Stella said.

But even so, this delta was corroborated by a long run completed by Oscar Piastri today which placed him an average of around four tenths a lap quicker than the competition in warmer conditions, though he was an average of nine tenths a lap slower than Norris.

Of course all of this comes with the usual testing caveats, some of which have been pushed by the team themselves, and the true test of their pace will come in Melbourne.

A packed mid-field?

We could see two additional teams fighting at the front of the midfield if this test is anything to go by, as both Williams and Alpine have had positive, consistent running that from an outside perspective makes it seem like they’ve made a real step.

Alpine completed 405 laps over the three days, leaving Pierre Gasly to conclude that they’re beginning the year “in a much stronger position” than last year. “In general, I feel happy in the car and that is a good place to be ready for the season opener,” he said. 

Their new driver, Jack Doohan, is heading into his home race and the opening round of the year with “some useful knowledge”. Doohan described the test as “smooth”, saying “the car ran well all week, which meant we could achieve plenty of laps and plenty of mileage.”

Williams came into the test with momentum from launch season and clear positive feeling, one that they’ll likely be leaving the test with too, particularly on Sainz’s side. Carlos Sainz’s debut for the team perhaps couldn’t have gone better, particularly in terms of raw lap pace, given that he set the fastest lap time of the entire test in tough conditions, perhaps with some pace in hand.

Williams completed 395 laps in the three days over longer and performance runs. While things were positive on Sainz’s side, Albon struggled to get going this morning given the gusts out on track and “a couple of issues on the car” which delayed their running.

“We got a good long run in and a decent lowish performance run style, ending the day with some more long runs,” Albon said, concluding “so all in all, I’m positive.”

Both Williams and Alpine achieved almost bulletproof reliability, a fact that cannot be underestimated in its importance for successful pre-season preparation. Outwardly, both teams looked to have solid performance, smooth running and times of strong pace, which if it continues, points to the potential for them challenging the front runners at times this year.

Pirelli’s Conclusions

Pre-season testing is also a vital time for Pirelli as their newly formed tyre range and their constructions are put to the test by all the teams for the first time. But the unusual conditions hampered their potential to take real conclusions from these three days.

“For years now, Formula 1 has chosen this circuit for the only pre-season test  because the weather is usually very favourable, but that was not the case this week, especially the first two days,” explained Pirelli’s Director of Motorsport, Mario Isola.

“Low temperatures, considerably lower than at this time of year in previous years, and strong wind affected the teams’ work and made it even harder than usual to interpret the results, with no previous reference points on this track at such low temperatures,” he explained.

As was expected given the teams’ individual tyre selections, the C3 proved to be the most run tyre over the test with the C2 a close second – the compounds that will be the soft and medium tyres for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli were able to conclude that the C2 behaved as they had expected, with it being further from the C1 and closer to the C3 in performance.

The C4 was less used, with some drivers concluding that it didn’t offer much grip advantage over the C3 – perhaps given the conditions. Neither the C5 nor C6 made an appearance over the three days, leaving them to make their debut at practice sessions later in the year.

With the pre-season phase now complete, attention for most teams turns to the first round of the season in Melbourne, Australia in two weeks’ time. For Alpine and Williams, they’ll stick around in Bahrain for a few days more to complete a Pirelli tyre test for 2026 preparation from March 2^nd-3^rd – Alpine with their reserve drivers Paul Aron and Ryo Hirokawa, and Williams with Sainz and Albon.