Barcelona Test 2026, day-1: Hadjar beats Russell, Ferrari and McLaren start tomorrow

This is how the first day of the F1 shakedown went. The first day of the shakedown in Barcelona ended a little while ago. On the Montmeló circuit, where due to a technical problem live timing was accessible throughout the morning despite closed doors, the best time was achieved by Isack Hadjar. The Frenchman would have stopped the clock at the reference of 1:18.159, a time obtained in the afternoon. The Red Bull driver would have preceded George Russell by half a second and Franco Colapinto by two seconds. The conditional is a must, out of respect for the readers and for the truth: the times, in fact, were not officially provided by Formula 1, but by the local newspaper SoyMotor, the only one that gave updates throughout the day, even with “stolen” photographs, which undermined the restrictions imposed by Formula 1. Fourth position for Kimi Antonelli, 2.6 seconds behind Hadjar with a time obtained in the morning and not improved in the afternoon. The work programmes, petrol loads, tires used and laps driven are currently unknown to the media, we will see if the teams or Formula 1 will provide some more information in the evening. Apparently the “newborn” Cadillac and Audi are in difficulty, having just replaced Sauber on the track too. Also according to the Spanish newspaper, the workaholic of the day was Esteban Ocon, who completed 150 laps. In the morning there were three red flags. The first was caused by Franco Colapinto’s Alpine stopping on the track; the second stop was forced by Gabriel Bortoleto’s Audi, which stopped in Turn-11: around 1pm Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls stopped on the main straight. F1 Shakedown, the times of day-1 DriverCarTimeIsack HadjarRed Bull 1’18″159George RussellMercedes1’18″696Franco ColapintoAlpine1’20″189Kimi AntonelliMercedes1’20″700Esteban OconHaas1’21″301Liam Lawson Racing Bulls1’21″513Valtteri BottasCadillac1’24″651Gabriel BortoletoAudi1’25″296Sergio PerezCadillac1’25″974