Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Mugello, 2025

Lewis Hamilton did not participate in today’s Pirelli tyre test at Mugello because his pet dog Roscoe has been taken ill.

The Ferrari driver revealed on social media his pet is in a coma after being diagnosed with pneumonia.

“Please keep Roscoe in your thoughts,” said Hamilton. “Roscoe caught pneumonia again and was struggling to breathe.

“He was admitted [to] hospital, and sedated to calm him while they did checks on him, and during the process his heart stopped. They managed to get a heartbeat back and now he’s in a coma.

“We don’t know whether he will wake from this. Tomorrow we’ll try to wake him up. I’m by his side and want to thank you all for your prayers and support.”

Pirelli confirmed yesterday evening Ferrari’s test driver Zhou Guanyu had joined race driver Charles Leclerc as the team continued development work on their new tyres for the 2026 season. The pair were due to drive an adapted ‘mule’ car based on last year’s SF-25.

However wet conditions at Mugello prevented Pirelli from completing their test programme. “Unfortunately, the weather didn’t help,” said Pirelli’s director of motorsport Mario Isola. “That’s a shame, as Mugello is not just a wonderful circuit, but also very demanding on tyres and it would have been useful to get in some consistent running to define the hardest compounds.

“Now we will have to finish the work of analysing the little data we collected over these two days and cross-reference it with that from previous sessions, in order to reach the necessary conclusions.”

Leclerc covered 25 laps in the morning, all on intermediates, setting a quickest time of 1’34.914. Zhou took over for the afternoon, spent most of the session on intermediates and full wets, but was able to complete some runs on slicks. He covered 75 laps and set a best time of 1’22.012.

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