Norris leads Hamilton and Leclerc as Ferrari and McLaren kick off tyre test at Barcelona

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McLaren's Lando Norris headed the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc on Tuesday as the Scuderia and the Woking-based outfit kicked off the two-day Pirelli tyre test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo reports on Day 1 of the Pirelli tyre test.

Following their on-track activity at Fiorano and Barcelona over the course of the last two weeks, Ferrari continued to rack up more mileage today, this time with McLaren during the season's first slick tyre Pirelli tyre testing.

The Milan-based tyre supplier has already staged a tyre test last week, having worked with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the Paul Ricard circuit, putting its focus on the wet and intermediate tyres for the 2026 season, when the regulations will stipulate the same 18” rim diameter as the current ones, but with a slightly smaller width and external diameter on both the front and rear axles.

The Italian tyre supplier worked with McLaren, using the 3.463 kilometre long 2A version of the Le Castellet track. On the first day Oscar Piastri completed 120 laps, with a best time of 1'07''008, while the second day saw Lando Norris complete 123 laps, with a best time of 1'07''956. Between them, they covered 840 kilometres, all on a wet track.

Pirelli has now kicked off its first slick tyre test of the year, concentrating on it 2026 products. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton shared driving duties on Tuesday, using the 2024 F1 Ferrari, albeit in 'mule' version. The aerodynamic tweaks meant that Ferrari equipped its 2024 F1 car with a smaller front and rear wing in a bid to simulate the lower downforce levels that are expected for next year's extensive technical overhaul.

The seven-time world champion set a benchmark of 1m15.9s which was a tenth of a second quicker than what Leclerc managed to achieve. McLaren's Lando Norris was significantly quicker than the Ferrari pair, setting a 1m.15.2 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

"It’s going to be a very busy start to the season for those of our engineers working on development: after this test at Paul Ricard, we have a further two test sessions in the coming two weeks. Both of them are in Spain and will focus on dry weather tyres.

"On 4 and 5 February, McLaren and Ferrari will be on track at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit and then, on 12 and 13 at Jerez de la Frontera, Alpine will be working with us on both days, while McLaren and Mercedes will do one day each," Isola concluded.