The first shakedown sessions for the 2026 Formula 1 car have been taking place in Barcelona. One team appears to have an early advantage. (Photo by Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images)
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Barcelona has hosted four days of teams conducting shakedown sessions on the new 2026 Formula One car. With such dramatic technical changes, the 11 teams on the grid are receiving their first real track data to take back to their headquarters ahead of the two three-day pre-season testing sessions on February 11–13 and February 18–20 at the Bahrain International Circuit. While the changes have the chance to level the playing field early in the season, one team appears to be jumping ahead of the field out of the shakedown sessions.
There hasn’t been such a dramatic change in car regulations in Formula 1 since 2022, when, as we are seeing now, extended testing was afforded the teams when the design featured heavy ground effects. For 2026, gone are the heavy ground effects and a downforce reduction. In is a shorter wheelbase, increased electric power for overtakes, active front wing design, and more, all of which has afforded teams dramatic design differences, namely around the air intake box, and sidepods.
The four-day shakedown sessions in Barcelona are closed to the media and public but Formula 1 and the teams have been reporting out on the progress – and sometimes, lack thereof – of testing. Teams are allowed to hold sessions on three of the four days, with Friday being the last day.
On Thursday, Aston Martin finally made their appearance with the Honda-powered, Adrian Newey-designed AMR26 piloted by Lance Stroll. Friday will see Fernando Alonso pilot sessions.
McLaren has seen 2025 World Champion Lando Norris take laps on Wednesday and teammate Oscar Piastri on Thursday in the MCL40 outfitted with a special black “shakedown” livery. The team discovered a fuel system problem, lowering Piastri’s lap total to just 48.
Red Bull, Ferrari, Racing Bulls, and Cadillac joined Aston Martin and McLaren on the Thursday sessions with Ferrari racking up the most laps.
In prior days, Audi seemed to have bumped into a reliability issue, while Racing Bulls has seen improvement.
One team that won’t be doing shakedown sessions is Williams. Team principal James Vowles said it was “incredibly painful” to be missing the shakedown, citing “delays in the FW48 programme.” Instead, Williams will look to pre-season sessions in Bahrain to make up for lost time.
While there is time between now and the first race in Melbourne, which runs March 6-8, one team appears to be ahead of the field out of these first shakedown sessions, which could prove to be dividends for the 2026 season.
Mercedes and the W17 have been racking up laps between both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, so much so that they hit the max number allowed during the four-day sessions and will therefore not be turning laps on Friday. Antonelli finished his work in the morning session on Thursday adding 90 more laps to his total for the week. In total he had 237 laps across the three days. Russell ran the afternoon sessions and completed 78 laps, logging a total of 265 laps this week in Barcelona.
Combined, the team completed 500 laps across the three days, just over 2,325km of total mileage.
While speed is always at the forefront, Thursday was about more than lap times. The team was impressed with the reliability of the car.
“From a reliability perspective, it’s been a good week for us,” said Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director for Mercedes. “The car has enabled us to run the programme exactly as we wanted each of the three days and that’s what we hoped for coming here to Barcelona. It is a huge testament to the hard work of everyone at Brackley and Brixworth in bringing this car to life. We’ve also made good progress with some of the challenges we saw on days one and two and that is pleasing.”
“We go [to Bahrain testing] with high confidence and high hopes because, definitely, it’s been good,” said Antonelli. “Obviously, we had our issues during the shakedown, but we were able to fix them and now we can be sure that in Bahrain we can more or less hit the ground running there as well.”
Russell, who finished 4th in the drivers’ standings in 2025, has his eyes set on challenging Norris, Verstappen, and Piastri at the front of the field in 2026 and seeking his first Drivers’ Championship.
“The car is working well but we know that it is not about the car working well, it’s about how fast it can go,” Russell said after testing on Thursday. “We don’t have any indication of that yet so we will have to wait until Bahrain until we get any indications of the relative pecking order. It’s very early days but we can be pleased with this initial foundation we have put in place.”