McLaren will hand Leonardo Fornaroli his first official taste of a Grand Prix weekend in Barcelona this Friday, with the reigning Formula 2 champion stepping into Lando Norris’s car for Free Practice 1.
It’s a move that ticks the obvious regulatory and housekeeping boxes, but it also reads as something more pointed: McLaren putting a proper spotlight on a driver it quietly scooped up late last year, then accelerated into a reserve role for 2026. In a grid where opportunities are scarce and reputations can fade quickly once the F2 confetti’s been swept away, an FP1 outing in a current car is a statement of intent — especially when the seat belongs to the reigning world champion.
Fornaroli’s CV is the sort that normally doesn’t need much marketing. He won the 2025 F2 title and joined a short list of drivers who managed it as a rookie — a roll of honour that includes Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Oscar Piastri. And yet, as the 2026 F1 season began, he was watching from the pitwall rather than strapping in on Sundays.
McLaren’s answer was to bring him into its junior set-up at the end of 2025, then formalise his place this year as reserve driver alongside Pato O’Ward. The team has also put serious mileage under him away from the cameras, running Fornaroli through an extensive Testing of Previous Cars programme with its 2023 machine at Barcelona, Silverstone and the Circuit of the Americas. Add in simulator work and trackside duties, and McLaren has essentially treated him like someone it expects to need sooner rather than later.
This weekend is the first public proof of that investment.
Fornaroli will drive the MCL40 in FP1 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, running the number 67 for the session. The detail that lands is not the number, though — it’s the car. Teams can and do rotate rookies through Friday running, but there’s still a hierarchy to whose programme gets disrupted. Taking Norris out rather than Oscar Piastri is noteworthy, even if the practical reality is that Friday plans are built to accommodate these sessions.
For Fornaroli, the job is simple in theory and brutal in practice: deliver clean feedback, hit the test items, don’t create any awkwardness. Barcelona is one of those circuits that tells engineers the truth quickly, which makes it a useful place for a debut but also an unforgiving one. There’s no hiding a lack of confidence through the long corners, and no escaping the scrutiny if you miss braking points or fail to build tyre temperature properly across a run plan.
“I’m looking forward to getting to drive the MCL40 this weekend in Spain for Free Practice 1,” Fornaroli said in a statement. “It’s a great opportunity to support the team with their preparations and work through the planned Friday programme.
“It’s also a very special milestone for me personally as it will be my first official Formula 1 session. It’s something I’ve worked towards for a long time and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to take this next step with McLaren Racing.”
He also pointed to the value of the TPC programme, calling the experience “so valuable for my development and overall learning of driving a Formula 1 car”, and thanked Zak Brown, Andrea Stella and Alessandro Alunni Bravi for their support ahead of Friday.
The wider context is unavoidable. Fornaroli’s absence from the 2026 grid has been one of those paddock quirks that people keep circling back to: a champion who did the hard bit, then didn’t get the seat. His former team boss James Robinson, who ran him to the F2 title at Invicta Racing, has been particularly vocal about how unusual that is — and how quickly it should be corrected.
“Unquestionably so,” Robinson said when asked whether Fornaroli deserves an F1 chance. “Who are the guys who have won Formula 2 as a rookie? They are Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Gabriel Bortoleto and Leonardo Fornaroli. They are all exceptional drivers. Leo is the anomaly, that he’s not in Formula 1 right now.”
Robinson also drew the obvious parallel with Piastri, who had to wait before getting his break after winning F2, adding he’d “be very disappointed if Leo wasn’t in a Formula 1 seat for next year”.
It’s easy to see why McLaren is being careful but deliberate. The team already has Norris and Piastri as its competitive reference points, and neither seat is remotely open in 2026. But having a ready-made, properly prepared option matters — for contingency, for leverage, and for whatever the next silly season brings. FP1 in Barcelona won’t decide Fornaroli’s future on its own, yet it’s the sort of small, visible step that keeps a career moving forward in a sport that’s happy to leave people behind.
For now, the brief is straightforward: get in, get on with it, and give McLaren something it can use. If Fornaroli does that — calmly, quickly, without theatre — it will only add to the sense that this “anomaly” isn’t going to last much longer.
