Hamilton reflects on 'incredible feeling' after Ferrari pre-season testing debut

Lewis Hamilton has reflected on his first day of official pre-season testing as a Ferrari driver, after he took to the track at the Bahrain International Circuit.

Hamilton was quick out of the blocks on Wednesday morning as pre-season testing got underway, hitting the track in a Ferrari SF-25 heavily adorned with aero rakes, before shedding them to set some competitive lap times.

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The seven-time champion – who moves over from Mercedes after 12 years with the Silver Arrows – wound up P13 on the timesheets, having clocked a useful 70 laps.

“Testing is always exciting,” said Hamilton on Wednesday evening. “It’s the first time you get to see what everyone has been developing and can start to get a feel for your own car and the year ahead.

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“Being here with Scuderia Ferrari HP and in the SF-25 for the first time is an incredible feeling. Our focus right now is on experimenting with different things, gathering as much data as possible and getting familiar with the car, and we’ve already learned a lot.

“It’s too early to really understand performance, but everything feels good and as a team we’re working on the best way to optimise each run. There’s more to do over the next few days to get through our programme and understand the car to the best of our ability, but right now I'm looking forward to getting out there again tomorrow.”

Team mate Charles Leclerc took over for the afternoon session, himself running to 71 laps, and winding up P4 on the timing boards.

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - FEBRUARY 26: Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 — Leclerc took over the SF-25 from Hamilton

“It feels good to be back on track,” said Leclerc. “The whole team put a lot of effort into the SF-25 project over the winter break, so it’s exciting to finally get down to work with it.

“It’s always a positive to have a smooth session without anything unexpected happening in terms of your run plan, although of course, it’s still too early to come to any conclusions about our performance. We’re going to analyse our data from today and make use of what we learn tonight when we start work again tomorrow.”