The young talent opened Ferrari’s program at the Barcelona shakedown with a first day of testing focused on verifying the operation of the new SF-26. With rain and driver rotations, the team prioritized understanding over performance.
Charles was the main figure on Tuesday in Barcelona during Ferrari’s first meaningful day of testing. The Monegasque driver was in charge of firing up the new SF-26 at Montmeló, marking the start of shakedown week in a key test ahead of the official sessions in Bahrain.
Leclerc’s session revolved around two main objectives: making sure all of the car’s systems worked as expected and collecting basic data under changing conditions. The Ferrari driver was behind the wheel early on and, despite light rain throughout the morning, completed a large part of the scheduled program without major issues.
“For now, it’s about trying to understand whether everything is working properly, and it was,” Leclerc explained after his first run of the day. The quote sums up Ferrari’s approach at this stage: not measuring performance or lap times, but ensuring that the new setup, aerodynamics, and systems of the SF-26 respond on track without problems.
The rain that appeared during part of the morning made it harder to extract clean lap references, but it didn’t prevent Leclerc from sticking to the plan. As he noted, this was a preliminary check of the car, and even though conditions weren’t ideal, the session allowed the team to confirm the functionality of the elements introduced with the new single-seater.
In the afternoon, Leclerc handed the car over to his teammate Lewis Hamilton, who closed out the work and continued the on-track testing. The driver change is part of Ferrari’s strategy to split duties and gather data from two different perspectives on the same car.
Beyond what happens in Spain, the Monegasque was clear in saying that it’s still very, very, very early to evaluate true performance. With a completely new technical rule set and drivers still adapting to the new concepts of F1 2026, Ferrari is prioritizing understanding the behavior of the SF-26 before drawing conclusions.
Leclerc also mentioned that this season represents a big opportunity for the team to make a difference after years without a title. Even though the first test day was more about fine-tuning than fighting for lap times, that careful approach could prove key for what’s ahead.