2026 Formula 1 Barcelona-Catalunya Pre-Season Testing
F1 Barcelona pre-season testing live commentary and updates - day 1
F1 2026 starts here! Follow along for updates as they unfold from Barcelona
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But what can you do? So here is David Croft and Greg James predicting how many wins Ferrari will get in 2026
But will the Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur get involved with placing expectations? Here is what he had to say at its 2026 season launch in Maranello:
"It's far too early about expectation but we are there to work, to develop, to improve and we'll see what is the situation in Melbourne.
"But it's a very long way until Melbourne that today it was an important milestone to put the car on track without any issue and this is good, but we have a long way and I think the rate of development will be much higher this season.
"That's what you saw last year or the year before. It means that nobody knows what will be the situation in a couple of weeks now, but we for sure have to do the best to continue to be able to collect data, to develop the car and to be focused on ourselves.
"We'll see about the performance when we'll be in Melbourne but even Melbourne will [not] be the end of the championship. It won't be the end of the championship but I think we'll have a huge rate of development."
Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc $ Frédéric Vasseur, Ferrari
Photo by: Ferrari
But huzzah, we have some quotes from the track. Here is Cadillac's new driver Valtteri Bottas: "Priority list now is get more laps each day, think I got a bit more than 30 laps today, some of them just installs and stuff, but we need to get some proper running in, get the mileage in, and make sure we get a reliable package for race one."
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac
Photo by: Formula 1
Look, a car! A big year for Lawson up ahead though, one where he'll perhaps put himself onto the radar of other teams should a return to Red Bull not be on the cards.
Ayao Komatsu has told F1 TV: “To do 67 laps on the Day 1 morning was really, really good. Now we can start looking a bit more into details.
“Now that we are running, we are discovering issues, problems we need to solve, every lap, every run. But that’s what we are here for, right?
"At least we are running, that means we are gathering data, we are identifying issues that we need to solve. Still, obviously we just got started, but I’m very, very happy how we started.”
Ayao Komatsu, Haas F1 Team
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley claimed that the 2026 "engine sounds more aggressive" than that of the previous era at the German marque's season launch last week.
Well, you can decide that for yourself now with F1 releasing a video of the Audi on track today:
Well the afternoon has certainly been a stark contract to this morning. Although the test is private, there were still leaks from the track earlier today, but almost nothing is known about the post-lunch running.
So here is the rear of Lawson's Racing Bulls for you...
Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls
Photo by: Formula 1
And now time to hear from Antonelli on how the 2026 Merc compares to its predecessor:
"Well, it still will take a bit of time to try all the modes, you know, overtake, override, all that kind of stuff - it's different. But the car is nice, it's very nice to drive and obviously on the PU side it's a bit different compared to what we had last year, it requires a bit more management but it's all doable."
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes W17
Photo by: Mercedes AMG
The fastest lap of the day according to leaked and unofficial timing was Hadjar with a 1m18.159s – but, again, on a day devoted to validating new systems this was not at all representative. George Russell, who took over from Antonelli in the afternoon, was 0.537s off Hadjar; the overall spread from fastest to slowest (Sergio Perez, who completed just 11 laps in the Cadillac during the afternoon) was 7.815s.
So with that, now that our report of the action - if you can call it such - is out, we shall leave you until the fun starts again tomorrow morning...
Adios!
By: Autosport Staff
