Revealed: Ferrari’s area of focus for Lewis Hamilton's SF-25 at Bahrain testing

Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari was one of the first cars out on track as F1 pre-season testing kicked off in Bahrain.

As part of Ferrari’s early testing programme, Hamilton’s Ferrari was fitted with a huge aero rake.

The interesting reason soon became clear, before Hamilton finished 13th on the timesheet.

Sky Sports' Ted Kravitz explained: "The aero rake was positioned downstream on the front wing. That’s because they needed to get a read on what the front wing was doing.

"This area of front wing, and particularly front wing flexibility, is perhaps the key to this season’s championship.

"Something changed over the winter. At the end of last year the FIA were happy with the flexibility on the wings, even though they asked McLaren to tidy up their mini-DRS.

"But something changed, the FIA said ‘actually we are not happy!’ They asked the teams to firm up their front wings by a few millimetres.

"Much of the performance that McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes found was due to aero elasticity on the front wings, giving drivers the downforce they needed.

"Something has changed and that’s what Ferrari were sorting out on their first run with Hamilton."

Kravitz added: "I was interested to see that aero rake on Hamilton’s car on his first run, measuring what’s going on with the front wing.

"It’s one of the technical talking points of the early part of the year."

What is an F1 aero rake?

Teams use aero rakes to understand the airflow around their car.

This is important at this stage of the year because all 10 teams are running new cars with new aero packages.

These rakes will allow Ferrari to determine whether the airflow is as expected from the wind tunnel, playing an important role in terms of correlation.

Teams will abandon running these rakes when they up the pace and focus more on performance.

Rear wing analysis for Ferrari in F1 testing

"Look at the dished central rear wing of Hamilton's, it's new for this year," Alex Brundle said.

"That's Ferrari learning more about the air flow over the rear wing. What they have learned is that the central part of the main plane is more efficient than the exterior.

"You get more downforce versus the drag, in the central part, rather than the outside where the vortices sucks the car backwards."

Lewis Hamilton can get “proper feel” of Ferrari

Day one of testing in Bahrain was Hamilton’s first chance to get a true feel of the SF-25.

Hamilton and Charles Leclerc conducted a shakedown last week at Ferrari’s home track at Fiorano.

However, given the short and tight nature of the Italian circuit, it would have been difficult for either driver to get up to speed.

Hamilton had 12 hours of running available to him ahead of the first race in Melbourne on March 16.

F1 TV pundit Lawrence Barretto says the test will allow Hamilton to finally “stretch his legs” in Ferrari machinery.

“This is the day that Lewis would have waited for since he walked into Maranello,” Barretto said.

“He tested the 2023 car, the 2024 car and has done a couple of demo laps in the 2025 car. But this is where he will get a proper feel for the car, stretch his legs, and feel whether he can get the most out of this car.”

With Hamilton making the switch from Mercedes, adapting to the Ferrari power unit will be another important part of the adaptation process.

Hamilton has only driven with Mercedes power throughout his career, stretching back to his days at McLaren.

F1 commentator David Croft added: “There will be huge attention on Lewis, as there always is. Particularly as he makes his first few laps on Ferrari power. His entire career so far has been powered by Mercedes engines.”