Four days ago, Formula 1 kicked off the 2026 season with their shakedown at the Barcelona Circuit.
While Williams got off to a rocky start to the Formula 1 season — the team won’t even take part in testing in Barcelona — everything seems to be running smoothly for Mercedes.
Mercedes Dominates the Lap Charts
— Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director, shared that the team is performing better than anticipated at the midway point of the Formula 1 pre-season test in Barcelona. Speaking to
After a smooth and uneventful first day for Mercedes, there was no holding back on day three. George Russell completed 92 laps in the morning, while Kimi Antonelli circled the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya 91 times in the afternoon.
On day two, the team led by Toto Wolff stayed off the track due to rain. In general, teams are only allowed to run on three of the five shakedown days.
So far, the silver duo has not only covered the most kilometers on track, but also set the fastest times. On Wednesday, Kimi Antonelli clocked 1:17.362 — a full eight-tenths of a second faster than the previous test best set by Isack Hadjar.
On Wednesday, Mercedes’ chief engineer Andrew Shovlin hinted at more to come: “We still have one test day to focus on the setup.” Until then, the team had only been gathering data — they haven’t even started dialing in performance until Thursday, leaving competitors worried.
George Russell also impressed with a 1:17.580, even in the morning’s freezing temperatures. “This was one of the coldest tracks I’ve ever driven on, so the times don’t really tell the full story,” the Brit cautioned. On Thursday, Russell smashed a new best time of 1:16.641 — a massive 1.8 seconds quicker than Leclerc in the SF-26, sitting in P3.
“It was a pretty good shakedown,” Antonelli summarized, unsurprisingly.
“Today, the focus was a bit more on the soft tires, including long runs with the softs, to see how the car behaves and, in particular, how the power unit reacts at higher speeds through the corners,” he explained.
“Of course, we ran into a few issues during the shakedown, but we were able to fix them and are now confident that we can hit the ground running in Bahrain,” he added.
Hamilton Also Impressed with His SF-26
GettyAfter a disastrous 2025 season, Lewis Hamilton is placing high hopes on the SF-26.
Times mean little at this stage, but looking at the lap charts, Mercedes is already making a seriously strong impression. The W17 isn’t just fast — it’s reliable too, having racked up around 450 laps over the three days.
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton also expressed satisfaction with his new car on Thursday.
“We used the C2 and C1 tires, but it was so cold that they didn’t really perform well,” the record world champion explained. Still, he was satisfied with his half-day in the car.
On Friday, Hamilton is scheduled to get one final half-day of testing.
Aston Martin took to the track for the first time on Thursday. The team didn’t complete many laps that day, but it was important to get in a few installation laps to be ready to hit the ground running on Friday.
Lance Stroll was behind the wheel on Thursday, as expected, while veteran Fernando Alonso is scheduled to get his turn later on Friday.
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