Hamilton back in action as Ferrari and McLaren complete Pirelli F1 test

Four drivers covered nearly 3,000km to test prototypes of F1’s 2026 tyres

Lewis Hamilton was back on track with Ferrari for the Pirelli Formula 1 tyre test that took place this week at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Charles Leclerc fastest overall.

As the new technical regulations for 2026 make F1 cars smaller and lighter, the tyres will also be narrower – by 25mm at the front and 30mm at the rear – and have a slightly smaller diameter, though wheel size is not changing.

As a consequence, Pirelli has been testing prototypes ahead of next year, with a two-day test completed with McLaren at Circuit Paul Ricard last week for wet and intermediate tyres, and further two-day running was just completed in Spain.

Ferrari drivers Hamilton and Leclerc shared an SF-24, while on Tuesday Lando Norris was driving the MCL60 from the 2023 season, with both cars featuring technical adaptations making them closer to the 2026 technical requirements.

This was the first time the seven-time world champion was back on track after his crash on the same track last week, which was detrimental to Ferrari’s and Leclerc’s mileage.

“This time the programme centred around development of the slicks,” a press release from Pirelli stated. “Specifically being tested were various combinations of construction and compound, the latter from the hardest end of the range, from the C1 to the C3, as they are well suited to the Spanish track which is particularly demanding on tyres.”

The three drivers completed no fewer than 332 laps overall on Tuesday, with Norris racking up 159 laps while Leclerc and Hamilton covered 86 and 87 respectively. Norris was fastest, setting a 1m15.215s as his quickest lap time, followed by Hamilton in 1m15.930s and Leclerc in 1m16.060s.

Lando Norris, McLaren during Pirelli test

Photo by: Pirelli

Oscar Piastri took over at the wheel of the McLaren car on Wednesday and completed 152 laps, while Leclerc and Hamilton managed 74 each. This amounted to 300 more laps, meaning Pirelli’s engineers now have a whopping 2,943km’s worth of data to look into from the two-day test.

Leclerc was fastest overall thanks to a 1m14.971s marker, with Piastri and Hamilton lapping in 1m15.815s and 1m16.759s respectively on Wednesday. The Pirelli press release did point out that those lap times “have no real significance given the different work programmes”.

“It was a very useful session, particularly when it came to providing a comparison between the various different constructions for next season, as well as experimenting with some compounds from the harder end of the range,” Pirelli motorsport director Mario Isola stated following the two-day test.

“The Barcelona circuit is known as one of the most demanding for the tyres in terms of the energy exerted and degradation, therefore the information we have gathered over these two busy days will be very important for the future development of this generation of tyres.”

Pirelli’s 2026-spec tyre testing will resume on 13-14 February in Jerez with Alpine (two days), McLaren and Mercedes (one day each). Bahrain will then host another session on 2-3 March, just after pre-season testing, with Alpine and Williams in attendance on both days.