Formula One preseason testing was delayed following a circuit wide power cut at the Bahrain International Circuit.
During the afternoon session of the first day of the preseason test the floodlights and garages went dark. The drivers were forced to return to the pits in limited visibility.
The incident lead to comedic scenes in the garages with teams having to use phone torches to repair parts of their car. Ferrari who have an annual budget of £370 million pounds relied on the power of iPhone’s to inspect parts of their SF-25 after its run.
Lights out as power cut halts day one of F1 pre-season testinghttps://t.co/fGNAqeFL97
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) February 26, 2025
The outage resulted in delays of 65 minutes until the power was restored and the session was restarted.
Mercedes driver George Russell was confused: “I came to the pits and said ‘it’s dark out here, I need to change my visor!’ Then I realised there are no floodlights around.
“It would have been hectic if this was an hour later and the sun had already set.”
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc topped the timings after the delayed session was resumed.
