diff --git a/tests/e2e/README.md b/tests/e2e/README.md
index a324d8668..5cb68fb6a 100644
--- a/tests/e2e/README.md
+++ b/tests/e2e/README.md
@@ -11,13 +11,14 @@ This end-to-end test suite utilizes Ginkgo, a testing framework known for its ex
     1. [Adding a Test Suite](#adding-a-test-suite)
     1. [Sub-Tests](#sub-tests)
     1. [Best practices](#best-practices)
-1. [Running Tests](#running-tests)
-    1. [Pre-requisites](#Pre-requisites)
-    1. [How to Run the test](#How-to-Run-the-test)
-    1. [Running the test locally](#Running-the-test-locally)
-    1. [Settings for end-to-end test execution](#Settings-for-end-to-end-test-execution)
-    1. [Customizing the test run](#Customizing-the-test-run)    
-    1. [Get test definitions for the end-to-end test](#Get-test-definitions-for-the-end-to-end-test)
+1. [Running Tests](#running-the-tests)
+    1. [Pre-requisites](#pre-requisites)
+    1. [How to Run the test](#how-to-run-the-test)
+    1. [Running the test locally](#running-the-test-locally)
+    1. [Test Run scenarios while running on OCP](#test-run-scenarios-while-running-on-ocp)
+    1. [Settings for end-to-end test execution](#settings-for-end-to-end-test-execution)
+    1. [Customizing the test run](#customizing-the-test-run)    
+    1. [Get test definitions for the end-to-end test](#get-test-definitions-for-the-end-to-end-test)
 1. [Contributing](#contributing)
 
 ## Overview
@@ -248,6 +249,35 @@ Note: if you are running the test against a cluster that has a different archite
 TARGET_ARCH=arm64 make test.e2e.ocp
 ```
 
+#### Test Run scenarios while running on OCP
+When running the E2E test on OpenShift clusters, the framework supports three different registry scenarios:
+
+**Scenario 1: Test run with Internal Registry (Default behaviour)**
+For test run on OpenShift with the default settings, no additional configuration is needed. The test scripts will automatically configure and use the OpenShift internal registry:
+
+```sh
+# No HUB setting needed - uses internal registry by default
+make test.e2e.ocp
+```
+
+**Scenario 2: Test run with CI Mode with External Registry**
+In CI environments, set `CI=true` to use external registries with proper tagging:
+
+```sh
+export CI=true
+# Uses default HUB=quay.io/sail-dev with auto-generated tags if no PR_NUMBER var is being set 
+make test.e2e.ocp
+```
+
+**Scenario 3: Test run with custom External Registry**
+For custom external registries, specify your own HUB value:
+
+```sh
+export HUB=your-registry.com/your-namespace
+export TAG=your-tag
+make test.e2e.ocp
+```
+
 ### Settings for end-to-end test execution
 
 The following environment variables define the behavior of the test run:
diff --git a/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh b/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh
index 1ea600ec7..e669bccb6 100755
--- a/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh
+++ b/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh
@@ -123,12 +123,60 @@ initialize_variables() {
   OPERATOR_SDK=${LOCALBIN}/operator-sdk
   IP_FAMILY=${IP_FAMILY:-ipv4}
   ISTIO_MANIFEST="chart/samples/istio-sample.yaml"
+  CI=${CI:-"false"}
+  USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY=${USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY:-"false"}
+
+  # Debug logging and fallback for GINKGO_FLAGS
+  echo "CI environment: ${CI}"
+  echo "GINKGO_FLAGS received: '${GINKGO_FLAGS:-}'"
+
+  # Fallback: Generate GINKGO_FLAGS if empty and CI=true
+  if [ -z "${GINKGO_FLAGS:-}" ] && [ "${CI}" == "true" ]; then
+    GINKGO_FLAGS="--no-color"
+    echo "Generated GINKGO_FLAGS fallback: '${GINKGO_FLAGS}'"
+  fi
 
   # export to be sure that the variables are available in the subshell
   export IMAGE_BASE="${IMAGE_BASE:-sail-operator}"
   export TAG="${TAG:-latest}"
   export HUB="${HUB:-localhost:5000}"
 
+  # Handle OCP registry scenarios
+  # Note: Makefile.core.mk sets HUB=quay.io/sail-dev and TAG=1.29-latest by default
+  if [ "${OCP}" == "true" ]; then
+    # Debug output for troubleshooting
+    echo "DEBUG: CI='${CI}', HUB='${HUB}'"
+
+    if [ "${CI}" == "true" ] && [ "${HUB}" == "quay.io/sail-dev" ]; then
+      # Scenario 2: CI mode with default HUB -> use external registry with proper CI tag
+      echo "CI mode detected for OCP, using external registry ${HUB}"
+      export USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY="false"
+      # Use PR_NUMBER if available, otherwise generate timestamp tag
+      # Use TARGET_ARCH to differentiate tags for different architectures in CI, avoid race conditions in CI when multiple runs are pushing to the same default tag
+      if [ -n "${PR_NUMBER:-}" ]; then
+        TAG="pr-${PR_NUMBER}-${TARGET_ARCH}"
+        export TAG
+        echo "Using PR-based tag: ${TAG}"
+      else
+        TAG="ci-test-$(date +%s)-${TARGET_ARCH}"
+        export TAG
+        echo "Using timestamp-based tag: ${TAG}"
+      fi
+    elif [ "${CI}" == "true" ]; then
+      # Additional CI mode check - handle CI mode regardless of HUB value
+      echo "CI mode detected for OCP with custom HUB (${HUB}), using external registry"
+      export USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY="false"
+    elif [ "${HUB}" != "quay.io/sail-dev" ]; then
+      # Scenario 3: Custom registry provided by user
+      echo "Using custom registry: ${HUB}"
+      export USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY="false"
+    else
+      # Scenario 1: Local development -> use internal OCP registry
+      echo "Local development mode, will use OCP internal registry"
+      export USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY="true"
+    fi
+  fi
+
   echo "Setting Istio manifest file: ${ISTIO_MANIFEST}"
   ISTIO_NAME=$(yq eval '.metadata.name' "${WD}/../../$ISTIO_MANIFEST")
 
@@ -215,7 +263,7 @@ parse_flags "$@"
 initialize_variables
 
 # Export necessary vars
-export COMMAND OCP HUB IMAGE_BASE TAG NAMESPACE
+export COMMAND OCP HUB IMAGE_BASE TAG NAMESPACE USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY
 
 if [ "${SKIP_BUILD}" == "false" ]; then
   "${WD}/setup/build-and-push-operator.sh"
@@ -224,9 +272,13 @@ if [ "${SKIP_BUILD}" == "false" ]; then
     # This is a workaround when pulling the image from internal registry
     # To avoid errors of certificates meanwhile we are pulling the operator image from the internal registry
     # We need to set image $HUB to a fixed known value after the push
-    # This value always will be equal to the svc url of the internal registry
-    HUB="image-registry.openshift-image-registry.svc:5000/istio-images"
-    echo "Using internal registry: ${HUB}"
+    # Convert from route URL to service URL format for image pulling
+    if [[ "${HUB}" == *"/istio-images" ]]; then
+      HUB="image-registry.openshift-image-registry.svc:5000/istio-images"
+      echo "Using internal registry service URL: ${HUB}"
+    else
+      echo "Using external registry: ${HUB}"
+    fi
 
     # Workaround for OCP helm operator installation issues:
     # To avoid any cleanup issues, after we build and push the image we check if the namespace exists and delete it if it does.
@@ -272,7 +324,7 @@ if [ "${SKIP_BUILD}" == "false" ]; then
   fi
 fi
 
-export SKIP_DEPLOY IP_FAMILY ISTIO_MANIFEST NAMESPACE CONTROL_PLANE_NS DEPLOYMENT_NAME MULTICLUSTER ARTIFACTS ISTIO_NAME COMMAND KUBECONFIG ISTIOCTL_PATH
+export SKIP_DEPLOY IP_FAMILY ISTIO_MANIFEST NAMESPACE CONTROL_PLANE_NS DEPLOYMENT_NAME MULTICLUSTER ARTIFACTS ISTIO_NAME COMMAND KUBECONFIG ISTIOCTL_PATH GINKGO_FLAGS
 
 if [ "${OLM}" != "true" ] && [ "${SKIP_DEPLOY}" != "true" ]; then
   # shellcheck disable=SC2153
diff --git a/tests/e2e/integ-suite-kind.sh b/tests/e2e/integ-suite-kind.sh
index f796ad3bd..29cd3427c 100755
--- a/tests/e2e/integ-suite-kind.sh
+++ b/tests/e2e/integ-suite-kind.sh
@@ -35,10 +35,10 @@ function check_prerequisites() {
 function run_integration_tests() {
   echo "Running integration tests"
   if [ "${MULTICLUSTER}" == "true" ]; then
-    ARTIFACTS="${ARTIFACTS}" ISTIOCTL="${ISTIOCTL}" "${ROOT}/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh" --kind --multicluster
+    ARTIFACTS="${ARTIFACTS}" ISTIOCTL="${ISTIOCTL}" GINKGO_FLAGS="${GINKGO_FLAGS}" "${ROOT}/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh" --kind --multicluster
   else
     KUBECONFIG="${ARTIFACTS}/config"
-    ARTIFACTS="${ARTIFACTS}" IP_FAMILY="${IP_FAMILY}" "${ROOT}/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh" --kind
+    ARTIFACTS="${ARTIFACTS}" IP_FAMILY="${IP_FAMILY}" GINKGO_FLAGS="${GINKGO_FLAGS}" "${ROOT}/tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh" --kind
   fi
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/e2e/integ-suite-ocp.sh b/tests/e2e/integ-suite-ocp.sh
index 83566be1a..a075dd269 100755
--- a/tests/e2e/integ-suite-ocp.sh
+++ b/tests/e2e/integ-suite-ocp.sh
@@ -27,4 +27,4 @@ if [ -z "${KUBECONFIG}" ]; then
     exit 1
 fi
 
-KUBECONFIG="${KUBECONFIG}" ./tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh --ocp
\ No newline at end of file
+KUBECONFIG="${KUBECONFIG}" GINKGO_FLAGS="${GINKGO_FLAGS}" ./tests/e2e/common-operator-integ-suite.sh --ocp
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/tests/e2e/setup/build-and-push-operator.sh b/tests/e2e/setup/build-and-push-operator.sh
index f4527fa45..4be9123fa 100755
--- a/tests/e2e/setup/build-and-push-operator.sh
+++ b/tests/e2e/setup/build-and-push-operator.sh
@@ -85,8 +85,15 @@ build_and_push_operator_image() {
 }
 
 # Main logic
-if [ "${OCP}" == "true" ]; then
+# Only use internal registry for OCP local development (when USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY is set)
+echo "DEBUG: OCP='${OCP}', USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY='${USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY:-false}'"
+if [ "${OCP}" == "true" ] && [ "${USE_INTERNAL_REGISTRY:-false}" == "true" ]; then
+  echo "Setting up OCP internal registry for local development..."
   get_internal_registry
+else
+  echo "Skipping internal registry setup - using external registry"
 fi
 
+echo "Registry: ${HUB}"
+
 build_and_push_operator_image
\ No newline at end of file