One question every F1 team must answer in 2025 pre-season testing

The time for talking is over as the stop-watch is about to tell us all. 

The F1 field has decamped to Bahrain for a three-day pre-season test ahead of the 2025 season-opener in Australia on March 16th. 

RacingNews365 will be on hand to deliver you the latest news, analysis, technical secrets and updates from Sakhir throughout the three days of running. 

But before we get going, we have taken a look at each team on the grid, and come up with one question they must answer this week in Sakhir. 

Let us know what you think in the comments!

McLaren –  Can it keep this momentum going?

Ever since it introduced an upgrade package back at the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix, McLaren has not missed. It is an astonishing strike rate, but now the hard work really begins. 

It is no longer the hunter, but the hunted, and as Lando Norris put it, there are "no excuses" not to deliver a first drivers' title since 2008. 

McLaren goes into the season as favourite, but will the MCL39 be able to live up to the perfect upgrade trend of the MCL60 and MCL38 that preceded it?

Ferrari – How quickly will Hamilton get up to speed?

There are no question marks surrounding Charles Leclerc, who has been at Ferrari since 2019 and starts his seventh season at the Scuderia.

Instead, most of the attention will be on new team-mate Lewis Hamilton. 

Hamilton has spent his entire career using Mercedes engines and power units and after 18 seasons, begins his 19th getting up to speed with Ferrari systems. 

Ferrari is expecting to win both the world championship titles, and it needs Hamilton immediately firing on all cylinders if that is to happen.

Red Bull – How is the first post-Newey car?

For the first time since the RB1 of 2005, a Red Bull F1 car will not be designed by Adrian Newey. 

He was critical of the team's handling of its tricky 2024 car, believing that others in the team were not as concerned as he was that the 2023 car was starting to get tricky to drive, and also questioned if there was a lack of experience within Red Bull.

Christian Horner rejected this when asked by RacingNews365, but the point remains. Red Bull's new-look technical team must deliver and be seen to be understanding the problems that so badly affected the 2024 car. It handled them during the title run-in, but never truly got on top of it as Verstappen limped to the title.

Mercedes – Will Antonelli sink or swim?

For the first time since 1954, a true rookie is driving for Mercedes in Kimi Antonelli.

Dubbed the 'next Verstappen', Antonelli is fiercely quick, but completes a meteoric rise up the ranks - he was racing, and winning championships, in Formula 4 in 2022, but has come through the Nico Rosberg karting school.

If Mercedes is off the pace in 2025, then that is not a bad thing for Antonelli, but the team has gone radical with the W16 to be at the top table on a more consistent basis after ironing out long-term problems with its ground-effects package.

Aston Martin – Has it finally made a step forward after a season-and-a-half of nothing?

As the team prepares for Newey's arrival, it must show it has made tangible steps forward over the winter. 

He does not officially start until March 1st - the day after testing you might note - and so has had no impact on the AMR25 machine to be driven by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

But since mid-2023, this team has stalled with upgrades. 

Packages have failed to deliver the expected boosts, with Alonso growing repeatedly frustrated at times in 2024 - with technical director Dan Fallows, engineering director Tom McCullough, and team principal Mike Krack all either no longer involved in the F1 programme or the jobs they held leaving Abu Dhabi last year.

The team needs to show it is on the right track.

Alpine – Has the momentum of late 2024 been squandered?

Alpine rocked up to pre-season testing in 2024 with an over-weight and under-powered car, uncertainty over its future, and the ghosts of a 2023 season that looked like a blood bath in terms of senior management leaving. 

But it is different now. Whatever you make of the decision to get rid of the works Renault engine programme and the return of the controversial Flavio Briatore, it is a plan for Oliver Oakes' team, and that's the one thing this team has been lacking.

Strong steps forward were legitimately made late last season, with a shorter nose helping Pierre Gasly to some fine results, including fifth in Qatar, which was possibly a better drive than his podium in Brazil. 

The team finally has some forward momentum, it cannot afford to lose it now.

Haas – Has it avoided the old trap of one good season, one bad season

Haas usually goes good season in an even-numbered year, bad in an odd-numbered one. 

In 2023, the season was destroyed by an inability to work out why the car lunched the Pirelli tyres so much in race stints, it was only something rectified in 2024.

With a brand-new driver line-up in Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon, Haas has a highly-rated protege and, for the first time, a grand prix winner as it celebrates a milestone of 10 seasons in F1.

It needs to show it can produce a strong midfield car season in, and season out.

Racing Bulls – Have closer Red Bull ties made any difference?

No doubt, at some point after testing, if the VCARB 02 proves a quick machine, then some midfield runner will cry wolf about the close technical alliance between Red Bull and what is now Racing Bulls.

It happens every season - but for this one, it might actually have some meat to the bone.

Racing Bulls has forged a closer working relationship with Red Bull by moving onto the Milton Keynes campus, and the car's fan-favourite livery looks like the iconic Red Bull design from the 2021 Turkish GP. 

If Yuki Tsunoda and Isack Hadjar are troubling the tops of the times after testing, it won't be the last you hear of Racing Bulls before the season starts.

Williams – What impact will Sainz have on this team?

Carlos Sainz is the first grand prix winner to sign for Williams from another team since Felipe Massa in 2017. 

That is a great vote of confidence in what James Vowles has done, but Sainz comes in as undoubted team leader thanks to his four seasons at Ferrari, fighting for wins, poles and world championships.

Alex Albon has explained how the team is more excited to work with Sainz than vice versa. Sainz will stamp his authority on the team, something that could make a difference in the midfield if it is expected to be as close as expected.

Stake – Have any tangible steps been made forward?

Very similar to Aston Martin, Stake must show that it can develop a car and make a good step forward after finding itself rooted to the foot of the table in 2024.

Audi will want to see some strong progress from also-ran, lapped backmarker to a consistent points challenger. 

The car for Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto must be up to regularly scoring points, or it will be another trudge around the world for the team.