Lewis Hamilton is believed to have posted the quickest time during the Barcelona shakedown, as teams got their first proper look at how the 2026 Formula 1 cars stack up against each other.
However, with these cars still early in their development phases, Ferrari and the rest of the grid will not be reading too much into those times just yet.
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur will be encouraged by what he saw from Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc during testing. The pair completed a solid number of laps, with only Mercedes putting in more mileage over the week.
Importantly for Ferrari, there were no obvious problems with their new power unit. The same appeared true for Haas and Cadillac, who are also running Ferrari engines this season.
Mercedes might still have a slight edge in engine management at this point, but it’s still early days.
Information was hard to come by over the five days of running at Circuit de Catalunya. Teams were understandably tight-lipped about details and data from this new generation of cars.
The decision by Ferrari to run on Tuesday wasn’t expected to draw much attention initially. But as they racked up more laps than any other team that day, many started taking note of their activity.
Ferrari’s decision to run in the wet during the Barcelona shakedown was a talking point
Valkenburg shared his thoughts on Ferrari’s approach on the Nailing the Apex Podcast saying: “There were raised eyebrows about why Ferrari elected to run in the wet.
“But you could say there is no better way to optimise drivability of power output than in very low grip conditions.
“They made use of it for their first day. By this Friday, they really looked good.”
He added: “Apparently, the car is responding well to exits. Of course, it’s running in, as you say, very basic spec, so expect to see a lot more intricate wings. But it’s been good.
Valkenburg did raise one concern about Hamilton’s integration into Ferrari: “The big issue I have is how come Lewis Hamilton doesn’t have an engineer there?
Hamilton and Leclerc are currently sharing an engineer during testing and pre-season activities, but that is expected to change once the season begins.
Hamilton shares thoughts on wet track running in Barcelona
The main story from day two of the Barcelona shakedown wasn’t about Ferrari, but Red Bull instead.
Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar slid into the barriers during the final sector while running in wet conditions, an incident F1’s official commentary described as a ‘small off’. The crash ended up costing Red Bull two days of track time.
Max Verstappen didn’t return to action until Friday, with the team having to bring in spare parts to get him back out on track.
Hamilton also had a minor spin during his session but came through it with far fewer issues than Hadjar.
Speaking about his first run and why they chose to run in the rain, Hamilton told PlanetF1: “Very challenging today, obviously, because it started raining at 10.30.
“So Charles had a little bit of dry running, but then it’s been wet all afternoon, so figuring out how to get the tyres working – it was really productive.
“I think we got 120 laps or something like that. Given it’s in the wet conditions and we had a red flag, I think that’s pretty solid.”
The seven-time world champion went on to praise everyone at Ferrari for getting things ready for Barcelona testing and said he was pleased with what they learned from the sessions despite not being able to run fully flat out due to conditions:
“Really proud of everyone back at the factory for getting the car to this point,” he added. “And we got a lot of information on the car today. Definitely need to keep it up. Lots and lots to do, but a good first day.”