Formula 1: How to watch the Bahrain Grand Prix on TV and what to know

SAKHIR, Bahrain (AP) — Here's a guide that tells you what you need to know about the Bahrain F1 Grand Prix. It's the fourth round of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

— In the U.S., ESPN.

— Other countries are listed here.

– Friday: First and second practice.

– Saturday: Third practice and qualifying.

– Sunday: Bahrain Grand Prix, 57 laps of the 5.4-kilometer (3.4-mile) Bahrain International Circuit. Race starts at 1100 ET (1500 GMT).

The Bahrain International Circuit in the desert at Sakhir was in 2004 the first venue in the Middle East to host an F1 GP. The track will be very familiar to drivers after they did three days of preseason testing there in February. Max Verstappen has won the last two races there for Red Bull. Lewis Hamilton is the most successful driver in Bahrain Grand Prix history with five wins.

Verstappen took his and Red Bull’s first GP win of the season after McLaren had dominated the first two rounds in Australia and China. Lando Norris was second and stayed one point ahead of Verstappen in the driver standings, with Norris’ McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri third.

Get caught up:

— McLaren driver Oscar Piastri took pole in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

— McLaren can be beaten, but Verstappen must be perfect: 5 takeaways from F1’s Japanese Grand Prix

— Red Bull’s Max Verstappen holds off McLarens to win his fourth straight Japanese GP

— Lewis Hamilton tempers expectations as he settles in with Ferrari

— McLaren’s Oscar Piastri wins Chinese GP from teammate Lando Norris. Both Ferraris disqualified

— Lando Norris: McLaren is ready for a title fight between its drivers

— Lewis Hamilton’s move to Ferrari is having a cultural impact far beyond Formula 1

— Red Bull dropped Liam Lawson after just two rounds and replaced him with Yuki Tsunoda.

61 – Verstappen has scored all of Red Bull’s 61 points this season. The last time a Red Bull driver other than him scored a point was Sergio Perez in Las Vegas in November.

50 – Pole sitter Piastri is heading into his 50th race in F1, all with McLaren.

0 – Two-time champion Fernando Alonso is among five drivers yet to score a point in 2025 after he placed 11th in Japan. The others are Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and rookies Liam Lawson, Gabriel Bortoleto and Jack Doohan.

“This is probably the first race so far when qualifying doesn’t mean everything. I’m expecting him to fight back tomorrow." — Piastri on his McLaren teammate Lando Norris.

"I’ve been slow this whole weekend, to be honest. I’ve just been off it. I feel like I’ve just never driven an F1 car before. I need to try and find some answers.” — Norris on his performance in qualifying.

“We did everything we could but that was the maximum we could get in qualifying. We struggled with the general balance of the car but also the brakes." — Verstappen on his performance in qualifying.

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Haas driver Esteban Ocon of France, left, and Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain, right, speak before the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix race at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton of Britain gets a pit service during the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix race at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama, Pool)

Red Bull driver Yuki Tsunoda of Japan steers his car during the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands, left, sprays champagne Second placed, McLaren driver Lando Norris of Britain, center, and third place McLaren driver Oscar Piastri of Australia on the podium after the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands celebrates after the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen of the Netherlands celebrates with his trophy on the podium after the Japanese Formula One Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, central Japan, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sluggish December hiring concluded a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment have remained low.

Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June, from 4.5% in November, a figure also revised lower.

The data suggests that businesses are reluctant to add workers even as economic growth has picked up. Many companies hired aggressively after the pandemic and no longer need to fill more jobs. Others have held back due to widespread uncertainty caused by President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff policies, elevated inflation, and the spread of artificial intelligence, which could alter or even replace some jobs.

Still, economists were encouraged by the drop in the unemployment rate, which had risen in the previous four straight reports. It had also alarmed officials at the Federal Reserve, prompting three cuts to the central bank's key interest rate last year. The decline lowered the odds of another rate reduction in January, economists said.

“The labor market looks to have stabilized, but at a slower pace of employment growth,” Blerina Uruci, chief economist at T. Rowe Price, said. There is no urgency for the Fed to cut rates further, for now."

Some Federal Reserve officials are concerned that inflation remains above their target of 2% annual growth, and hasn't improved since 2024. They support keeping rates where they are to combat inflation. Others, however, are more worried that hiring has nearly ground to a halt and have supported lowering borrowing costs to spur spending and growth.

November's job gain was revised slightly lower, from 64,000 to 56,000, while October's now shows a much steeper drop, with a loss of 173,000 positions, down from previous estimates of a 105,000 decline. The government revises the jobs figures as it receives more survey responses from businesses.

The economy has now lost an average of 22,000 jobs a month in the past three months, the government said. A year ago, in December 2024, it had gained 209,000 a month. Most of those losses reflect the purge of government workers by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

Nearly all the jobs added in December were in the health care and restaurant and hotel industries. Health care added 38,500 jobs, while restaurants and hotels gained 47,000. Governments — mostly at the state and local level — added 13,000.

Manufacturing, construction and retail companies all shed jobs. Retailers cut 25,000 positions, a sign that holiday hiring has been weaker than previous years. Manufacturers have shed jobs every month since April, when Trump announced sweeping tariffs intended to boost manufacturing.

Wall Street and Washington are looking closely at Friday's report as it's the first clean reading on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.

The hiring slowdown reflects more than just a reluctance by companies to add jobs. With an aging population and a sharp drop in immigration, the economy doesn't need to create as many jobs as it has in the past to keep the unemployment rate steady. As a result, a gain of 50,000 jobs is not as clear a sign of weakness as it would have been in previous years.

And layoffs are still low, a sign firms aren't rapidly cutting jobs, as typically happens in a recession. The “low-hire, low-fire” job market does mean current workers have some job security, though those without jobs can have a tougher time.

Ernesto Castro, 44, has applied for hundreds of jobs since leaving his last in May. Yet the Los Angeles resident has gotten just three initial interviews, and only one follow-up, after which he heard nothing.

With nearly a decade of experience providing customer support for software companies, Castro expected to find a new job pretty quickly as he did in 2024.

“I should be in a good position,” Castro said. “It’s been awful.”

He worries that more companies are turning to artificial intelligence to help clients learn to use new software. He hears ads from tech companies that urge companies to slash workers that provide the kind of services he has in his previous jobs. His contacts in the industry say that employees are increasingly reluctant to switch jobs amid all the uncertainty, which leaves fewer open jobs for others.

He is now looking into starting his own software company, and is also exploring project management roles.

December’s report caps a year of sluggish hiring, particularly after April's “liberation day” tariff announcement by Trump. The economy generated an average of 111,000 jobs a month in the first three months of 2025. But that pace dropped to just 11,000 in the three months ended in August, before rebounding slightly to 22,000 in November.

Last year, the economy gained just 584,000 jobs, sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024. It's the smallest annual gain since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the job market in 2020.

Subdued hiring underscores a key conundrum surrounding the economy as it enters 2026: Growth has picked up to healthy levels, yet hiring has weakened noticeably and the unemployment rate has increased in the last four jobs reports.

Most economists expect hiring will accelerate this year as growth remains solid, and Trump's tax cut legislation is expected to produce large tax refunds this spring. Yet economists acknowledge there are other possibilities: Weak job gains could drag down future growth. Or the economy could keep expanding at a healthy clip, while automation and the spread of artificial intelligence reduces the need for more jobs.

Productivity, or output per hour worked, a measure of worker efficiency, has improved in the past three years and jumped nearly 5% in the July-September quarter. That means companies can produce more without adding jobs. Over time, it should also boost worker pay.

Even with such sluggish job gains, the economy has continued to expand, with growth reaching a 4.3% annual rate in last year's July-September quarter, the best in two years. Strong consumer spending helped drive the gain. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta forecasts that growth could slow to a still-solid 2.7% in the final three months of last year.

FILE - A hiring sign is displayed at a grocery store in Northbrook, Ill., Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)