Barcelona’s behind-closed-doors 2026 shakedown did what the first proper running of a new rules cycle always does: it tempted everyone into reading too much into a little, while quietly handing out the only prizes that matter in January — a car that runs, and a programme that looks like it’s under control.
Ten of the 11 teams logged track time across the five-day window at Circuit de Catalunya, each limited to three running days and free to choose when to use them. Williams sat it out, leaving a paddock pecking order built on unofficial numbers, glimpses from the pitlane and the usual end-of-day whispers. Still, even with the usual caveats, two themes cut through: Ferrari has landed early performance, and Mercedes has arrived with a car that simply does laps.
Lewis Hamilton set the benchmark lap of the week, a 1:16.348 that put him just a tenth clear of George Russell’s Mercedes. In isolation it’s a headline; in context it’s more of a signal flare. By the final day of each team’s allocation, the focus naturally drifted from basic systems checks to something closer to performance running — still not representative, still not comparable in any scientific way, but no longer pure “does it work?” mileage harvesting either. Hamilton’s time suggests Ferrari has a baseline it likes, and it wasn’t afraid to show a hint of it.
Mercedes, though, will probably be the happiest group leaving Spain — not because it was pipped on the timesheet, but because it did what teams dream of at this point: it racked up 500 laps. Ferrari managed 442, itself a strong number, yet the difference is telling. In the first shakedown of a new era, you’re not just testing a chassis concept; you’re stress-testing your own processes. A clean run means the garage isn’t firefighting, the parts pipeline is working, and the new power unit architecture isn’t biting back. Brackley looked organised.
The rest of the timing list reads like a snapshot of a grid still learning what it’s built. Lando Norris slotted McLaren into third with a 1:16.594, ahead of Charles Leclerc’s 1:16.653. Kimi Antonelli was fifth on 1:17.081, with Oscar Piastri sixth. Max Verstappen ended up seventh on 1:17.586, which will cause the usual amount of social media theatre despite being largely meaningless without fuel loads, engine modes and run plans.
Behind them, the midfield spread looked exactly like a first-week test should: Pierre Gasly eighth, Isack Hadjar ninth, Esteban Ocon 10th and Oliver Bearman 11th. Liam Lawson, Franco Colapinto and Arvid Lindblad followed, then Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto, with Fernando Alonso down in 17th.
And then there’s the number that actually raised eyebrows: Aston Martin’s lack of running. The team didn’t turn a wheel until the final hour of Thursday before Alonso completed a full day on Friday. Total laps? Just 54. That’s not “we’re sandbagging”; that’s a programme that never got to be a programme.
It’s also a reminder of why the lap-count table is sometimes more revealing than the times. Haas quietly banked 386 laps — the sort of week that doesn’t generate glamour but does generate data. Alpine hit 345, Racing Bulls 319, Red Bull 303, and McLaren 291. Audi logged 240 and Cadillac 164. If you’re looking for who got three days of learning and who spent three days troubleshooting, those totals are your first clue.
The power unit numbers, too, tell a story of who has brought robust hardware to the party. Mercedes-powered cars piled on 1,136 laps in total, comfortably ahead of Ferrari’s 992. Red Bull Powertrains sat at 622. Audi matched its team figure at 240, while Honda’s total — 54 — mirrors Aston Martin’s week and underlines just how much running that project lost.
None of this crowns a favourite. It does, however, sketch the early landscape of the 2026 grid: Ferrari looks quick enough to turn heads, and Mercedes looks stable enough to build a season on. Those two traits don’t always arrive together at the start of a new cycle, and it’s not hard to see why the paddock will leave Barcelona with a slightly sharpened sense of who might dictate the first phase of development.
For everyone else, the job now is brutally simple. Convert early pace into repeatability, convert repeatability into understanding, and try not to spend February making up for January. Because if this week proved anything, it’s that the quickest route to being fast in 2026 might begin with the unglamorous art of just getting the laps done.
