Charles Leclerc says “every little thing went correctly” throughout Ferrari’s first morning of 2026 Formulation 1 testing at Barcelona.
As F1 strikes into a brand new technical period with new chassis and engine rules, the world championship is having a five-day take a look at behind closed doorways on the Catalan observe this week, although groups can run on solely three days every.
Ferrari unveiled its new SF-26 on Friday in Fiorano, the place it held a 15km shakedown assembly the Demonstration Occasion rules, then opted to skip the primary day of the Barcelona take a look at.
This implies the Scuderia’s first significant operating with its new equipment occurred this morning with Leclerc on the wheel, although it was impacted by rain from round 10:40am native time.
“For now it is all about attempting to grasp if every little thing is working correctly, which it form of did,” the Monegasque stated. “It is not the most effective situations as a result of it has been a little bit bit raining this morning, however truly we did our programme anyway, as a result of once more, we’re not targeted on efficiency or by any means. We’re extra about all of the methods which might be new on this automotive and see if every little thing works because it ought to. And it did, in order that’s a constructive.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Picture by: Ferrari
Pressed on the important thing takeaways of the morning, Leclerc performed the early operating down: “Clearly, being the primary morning, we have gone via the very first preliminary verify of the automotive, which every little thing went correctly.”
Lewis Hamilton took over on the wheel of the Ferrari for the afternoon, with Leclerc’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi reported by Sky Italia to tackle that position provisionally with the seven-time world champion too.
Hamilton’s earlier race engineer Riccardo Adami was moved apart to the Ferrari Driver Academy and the Testing of Earlier Vehicles programme, as a consequence of a transparent lack of chemistry between the pair.
“Little by little we’ll simply undergo our guidelines of the primary methods to then ultimately what issues most, which is efficiency,” Leclerc added. “However this can come in all probability a bit afterward in these three days and attempting to grasp first how every little thing behaves after which see the way it goes.”
The Monegasque insisted that it was “very, very, very early” to weigh in on F1 automobiles’ new instruments similar to lively aerodynamics and vitality boosts, with the morning “all about doing a correct system verify on a observe”, although he agreed managing these new ideas can be “a bit extra of a problem”.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Picture by: Ferrari
So far as his ambitions for 2026 are involved, the eight-time grand prix winner remained unsurprisingly cautious given how unpredictable the pecking order is amid a regulatory overhaul.
“This 12 months is an enormous alternative for each workforce to do one thing completely different and to perhaps achieve an even bigger benefit than what we have seen in the previous couple of years,” Leclerc stated. “I hope we’re the workforce that may handle to make the distinction. However wherever we begin, we’ll push on the most to try to deliver Ferrari again to the highest. It has been fairly just a few years, so I hope that this one is ours.”
Ferrari’s final world title was its 2008 constructors’ crown in 2008, with Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen.
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