Isack Hadjar on track with Racing Bulls at Imola this week

All eyes are mainly on Maranello, where Lewis Hamilton made his debut as a Ferrari driver this Monday before a first run at Fiorano scheduled for Wednesday, but this is not the only place in Italy where the 2025 season is being prepared. The Racing Bulls and Stake Sauber teams are in fact expected at Imola for testing.

Racing Bulls plans to run from Tuesday to Thursday, while Stake Sauber will be at the circuit on Wednesday and Thursday. Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto, who will both make their F1 debut this year, will be able to gain important experience. For Hadjar, seen in four Friday sessions over the last two years then at the Yas Marina test at the end of 2024, this will be his first ride in Racing Bulls colors since the announcement of his tenure exactly a month ago.

The Frenchman will be on track on Wednesday, a day for which there is a risk of rain, conditions he does not experience in F1. Yuki Tsunoda will ride on Tuesday and Red Bull Junior Team member Ayumu Iwasa on Thursday.

Bortoleto is also looking for experience. After discovering a McLaren, to which he was then linked, at the Red Bull Ring at the end of the summer, in an older generation single-seater, he simply took part in the Yas Marina test. Nico Hülkenberg is also expected on track this week to prepare for the 2025 season.

The two teams will run their drivers in older generation single-seaters, the AlphaTauri AT04 from 2023 and the Sauber C42 from 2022, with any testing with a more recent car being prohibited outside of sessions bringing together all the teams and short runs. dedicated to capturing images. Each driver must therefore cover 1000 km over the year spread over a maximum of four days.

Several teams are expected to do more runs like this before discovering their new cars. Some will then carry out a shakedown of the 2025 cars, taking advantage of the capture of images for sponsors and the media, but these runs will be limited to 200 km and with demonstration tires, before the real winter tests, scheduled for 26, 27 and February 28 on the Sakhir circuit.

With Franco Nugnes