Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Circuit de Catalunya, 2026

Lewis Hamilton was pleased with the amount of running Ferrari covered on its testing debut yesterday, despite the wet conditions.

Charles Leclerc drove the SF-26 in the morning but only completed 19 laps on slicks before rain arrived. He and Hamilton used intermediate and full wet weather tyres for the remainder of the day.

The conditions were “very challenging,” said Hamilton, “because it started raining at 10.30, so obviously Charles had a little bit of dry running, but then it’s been wet all afternoon.”

Nonetheless he said Ferrari’s first day on-track at the Circuit de Catalunya had been “really productive.”

“I think we got 120 laps or something like that,” he told the official F1 channel. “Given it’s in the wet conditions and we had a red flag, I think that’s pretty solid.”

“It could be so much worse,” he added. “It’s such a big regulation change, so to get through the day without […] major issues [is positive]. It’s just small, little increments that we’re trying to improve on. I think it’s great, and we just need to try and get some more days like this.”

All teams are allowed to run on three of the five days of this weekend’s season-opening test in Spain. Hamilton said he was “hoping to experience the car in the dry” during the remainder of the week so he can fully understand how its new Straight Mode works.

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“I think just understanding the balance, understanding the new SM that we have and how to utilise it, how you can feel it. I’ve not driven it in the dry, so I don’t really have a feeling for it. Obviously we drove it in there in the wet, which is only the front [wing] part.

“Understanding the deployment’s going to be crucial and understanding how to use the power, the battery throughout the lap and recharging, all that kind of stuff. But we’ve done a huge amount of work, everyone’s done a huge amount of work on the simulator, so it’s not like it’s 100% brand new for us. But we still have to go through our sessions and through the data to try and optimise it.”

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