Lewis Hamilton praised Ferrari for accumulating an “amazing” amount of mileage at Barcelona, saying Ferrari had made a better start in F1 pre-season testing than last year.
Hamilton experienced his first dry run in the SF-26 on Thursday morning after having to battle wet conditions at this week’s Barcelona Shakedown on Tuesday. The shakedown will be a closed-door event and will give teams the first opportunity to test their new cars for 2026 after the introduction of new power units and chassis regulations.
Seven-time world champion Hamilton completed 85 laps, with teammate Charles Leclerc adding a further 89 laps in the afternoon. The total suggests Ferrari is not suffering major reliability issues, as it did in pre-season testing in Bahrain last year when Hamilton’s run was severely degraded by technical issues.
“When you come to a test you always want to get a lot of mileage,” Hamilton said. Hamilton had a disappointing debut with Ferrari last year, going the season without a grand prix podium for the first time in his career.
“We did 85 laps in the morning today, which is amazing. It’s really all down to all the people at the factory who have done a great job so far in making sure the car is really reliable.”
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Watch highlights from the morning of the fourth day of shakedown as each team runs their cars at the Barcelona test.
“Last year we had an even worse start in testing, so given that this is a completely new set of rules, this is a better result than what we’ve experienced in the past, so I’m really hoping that this continues.”
Ferrari have shown great reliability so far, but the teams that have competed at the front of the grid in recent years are also off to a good start, and we expect stiff competition heading into the new season.
Hamilton and Leclerc are expected to share the track with Ferrari again on Friday, leaving the Italian team with the last of three allowed driving days in the week before attention turns to two official test events in Bahrain in February.
Hamilton added of what Ferrari hoped to achieve in the remaining events: “We will continue to try to get as much mileage and knowledge as possible about this engine, this car, the aerodynamics.”
“This morning we went through the program and found some learnings. Charles is doing another set this afternoon, which is great.”
“My role is to listen to as many people as possible. At the end of the day, we get together and discuss our problems, the good and the bad. Then we make a plan for what we want to work on tomorrow, our last day.”
“But so far we already have good data, so we just need to understand it and make sure we can make clear and concise decisions about what to test going forward before we get to Bahrain.”
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