Mercedes didn’t just top the third day of running in Barcelona — it quietly put a marker down on what matters most at this stage of a new era: mileage, rhythm and a car that lets both drivers get on with the job.
With the weather finally playing ball at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the paddock looked a little more like a proper test on Wednesday. After Tuesday’s oddly subdued schedule, five teams rolled out to burn through a second permitted day, while McLaren finally fired up its 2026 programme with the first public laps for the MCL40.
At the front, though, it was the W17 doing the loudest talking. Mercedes split the day between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli and still managed to lock out the top two spots on the unofficial timing lists. Antonelli’s 1:17.362 was the headline number, just 0.218s quicker than Russell, but the more telling figure was in the lap count: 183 tours between them, pushing Mercedes’ week total to 334 laps — a hefty chunk of track time by any pre-season standard.
In a test without official live timing for media, the lap charts matter even more than usual. Every team knows these early days are less about a single number and more about how cleanly you can run through your plan. Mercedes looked like it had one, and more importantly, it looked like it could actually execute it.
Behind the Silver Arrows, there was a first proper glimpse of McLaren’s new year, and it arrived with the kind of visual cue that still makes seasoned paddock types do a double-take: Lando Norris, now the reigning world champion, rolling out in an all-black MCL40 carrying a papaya “number one”. Norris ended the day third quickest, 0.945s off Antonelli, after logging 76 laps — described as a little over a race distance — which is exactly what you’d want from a first day when you’re mainly checking systems, drivability and whether anything is going to fall off.
Alpine, meanwhile, kept things steady and functional. Pierre Gasly and Franco Colapinto shared duties in the A526, with Colapinto fourth on the day after 58 laps, and Gasly fifth with 67. The gap between their times was slim, and the programme looked like what you’d expect: solid mileage, plenty of baseline work, and no drama.
Not everyone got through it cleanly.
Haas had a scrappy day centred around Oliver Bearman, who ended up completing the fewest laps of anyone — 42 — after triggering a red flag and then running into two technical issues. One was described as minor early on, but a more serious problem later effectively killed the day. In winter testing, “more serious” is the phrase you never want to hear, because it usually means the team’s plan is now written in pencil for the next run.
Audi also brought out a red flag, with Nico Hulkenberg suffering a technical issue that cost him valuable track time. He eventually reached 68 laps, but he propped up the timing list, 3.648s off the top Mercedes. It’s the second stoppage Audi has had in this Barcelona test, and while nobody outside that garage can say how representative those times are, losing chunks of a limited test is always painful — especially when everyone’s trying to understand brand-new cars, new operating windows and the knock-on effects that come with them.
The endurance prize went to Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad. Seventh on time, first on volume: 120 laps in a single day is proper old-school graft, the kind of number that makes engineers visibly relax because it means they’ve had enough data to start drawing conclusions rather than asking questions. It also hints that the car’s basic systems are behaving — not glamorous, but priceless in January.
As ever, all of Wednesday’s numbers should be treated with caution. With no official live timing feed available to journalists, the times and lap totals have been collated across multiple sources and are strictly unofficial. Still, patterns are patterns, and Mercedes ending the day with a 1-2 while also stacking laps is the sort of combination teams notice, even if nobody admits it on record.
Unofficial Day 3 classification (Barcelona):
1. Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes – 1:17.362 (91 laps)
2. George Russell, Mercedes – +0.218 (92 laps)
3. Lando Norris, McLaren – +0.945 (76 laps)
4. Franco Colapinto, Alpine – +1.788 (58 laps)
5. Pierre Gasly, Alpine – +1.835 (67 laps)
6. Oliver Bearman, Haas – +1.948 (42 laps)
7. Arvid Lindblad, Racing Bulls – +2.058 (120 laps)
8. Nico Hulkenberg, Audi – +3.648 (68 laps)
