Max Verstappen emerged quickest on day two of the low-key 2026 Barcelona shakedown, but the timing screens — such as they are — only tell half the story when just Red Bull and Ferrari bothered to run.
With no official live timing available to media and journalists, the paddock has been left doing what it always does in January: stitching together lap times and counts from a handful of sources, then trying not to read too much into any of it. Still, Verstappen’s reported 1:19.578 put the RB22 on top again on Tuesday, set during the cleaner, drier morning running before rain started to make the afternoon messy.
Red Bull split its day across its two drivers. Verstappen handled the AM work and is said to have logged around 25 laps — not a huge number, but enough for a short programme that looked very much like “confirm the basics, don’t chase numbers” rather than a full-bore run plan. The curious twist is that Verstappen’s headline time was still more than 1.4s slower than what new team-mate Isack Hadjar reportedly managed on Monday, a reminder of how useless cross-day comparisons can be when conditions, run plans and fuel loads are unknown.
Ferrari, the only other team to take to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Tuesday, also ran a clean two-driver split. Charles Leclerc banked the bulk of the mileage early, completing what’s described as a race distance and clocking a best lap 1.266s down on Verstappen’s benchmark while racking up 65 laps. In pure testing terms, that’s the more valuable line in the notebook: repeatable mileage, consistent laps, and a full-distance run that suggests Ferrari was prioritising systems checks and longer stints over any attempt to look clever on an unofficial timesheet.
Lewis Hamilton took over Ferrari’s afternoon running and got close to Leclerc’s mileage, ending the day with around 53 laps. His reported best lap left him well down the order, but that’s the sort of “result” that rarely survives contact with context. Afternoon conditions deteriorated as rain arrived, and Ferrari’s priorities at this stage of a shakedown are unlikely to include flattering the stopwatches.
The main talking point, inevitably, came from the other Red Bull garage. Hadjar returned to the RB22 in the wet afternoon session and, late in the day, images circulated on social media that appeared to show the car having crashed at Turn 14. The pictures suggested rear-end damage, although there was no confirmation from Red Bull on the cause or the extent of the repairs required.
If the incident is as significant as it looked, it’s less about lap time and more about logistics. Red Bull has now used two of its three permitted days at this Barcelona event, leaving it to decide which of the remaining days to spend on its final outing. In a test defined by scarce track time and uncertain weather, losing meaningful laps to repairs — or to a shortened programme — is the sort of nuisance teams hate, even if nobody will admit it publicly this early in the year.
Elsewhere, the Barcelona garage doors finally start opening on Wednesday for one of the notable absentees. McLaren has confirmed it will begin its running from day three, having sat out the first two days. In a lightly attended test, the arrival of another front-running team isn’t just welcome for fans; it’s useful for everyone trying to take a temperature reading of 2026 form without disappearing down the rabbit hole of rumour and paddock guesswork.
Unofficial day two classification (unofficial times and lap counts compiled from multiple sources):
1. Max Verstappen, Red Bull – 1:19.578 (25 laps)
2. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari – +1.266 (65 laps)
3. Isack Hadjar, Red Bull – +12.313 (43 laps)
4. Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari – +13.294 (53 laps)
