Bahrain's rain leaves most teams stranded on Day 2 of F1 testing

Only two teams were able to run midway through the second morning session of the 2025 pre-season test, due to rare Bahrain rain combining with a lack of suitable wet tyres at other squads due to their own selection choice

Formula 1’s 2025 pre-season test in Bahrain has been hit by further logistics shambles in two days – as rain temporarily left only two teams able to run midway through Thursday’s first session.

This follows Wednesday’s power cut at the Sakhir track, which led to an hour’s delay ahead of the evening running on day one and an eventual extension to the action.

On Thursday morning, the paddock arrived back under the rare gloomy skies for the Bahrain region that had featured throughout the daylight running on Wednesday.

This time, however, rain was already steadily falling – although not to the extent that the teams could not send cars out on slicks when the first session began at 1000 local time.

But, around 90 minutes later, the rain was falling heavily enough to require intermediate tyres for the cars to circulate safely, which only the Aston Martin and Haas squads possess for this event.

Unlike at regular F1 races, where each team is given seven sets of wet tyres (five intermediates and two extreme wets) in case of rain, for this test the teams were given the choice of how to fill 35 total sets, per squad, of Pirelli tyres across the company’s dry- and wet-weather ranges.

Aston has three sets of intermediates, while Haas has one set of inters and an extreme wet set, with the rest having to wait an hour before they could head back out on slicks - a significant hit to what is already heavily restricted testing time when the teams only have three days to get their new cars ready to run before the 2025 campaign commences.

For a time during the essentially lost hour, only Haas’s Esteban Ocon briefly circulated on the American team’s inters as the halfway point of the morning session approached amid a general lull in running.

Esteban Ocon, Haas F1 Team

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Pirelli team boss Mario Isola explained exclusively to Motorsport.com how the teams had made their test tyre choices, with the usual race sets unavailable even as a back-up because the Bahrain Grand Prix is not the season opener in 2025.

“In the past, Bahrain was the first race of the year,” said the Italian. “And that means that we had also the wider [set of wet-weather] tyres that we brought for the race, available here.

“But this year, the first race is Australia. And so, when we give the freedom to the teams to decide on their 35 sets of tyres are available for the test, they have the freedom to take any wet, intermediate, whatever they want.

“Knowing that, because the tyres for the race are in Australia and not in Bahrain, if they decided not to take an intermediate and wet, they knew already that in case of rain conditions they could not run.

“They took the decision and we respected the decision. I mean, it's their choice. They had the option to select anything, as Aston Martin and Haas did.”

Isola also suggested that “in the past, probably, they were relying on the fact that there is very little possibility in Bahrain to have rain”.