It’s always folly to read anything much into the fastest times set during pre-season testing, but Lewis Hamilton’s Barcelona benchmark just might be an exception.
It’s not that the time itself is particularly significant. At 1 minute 16.348 seconds, the lap wasn’t especially fast — pole at last year’s Spanish Grand Prix was almost five seconds quicker — and it was only 0.097 seconds faster than the next-best team-driver combination.
The comparison to teammate Charles Leclerc is also broadly irrelevant given much of the 0.3-second difference is explainable by the fact Hamilton ran in the afternoon, when the track was warmer and quicker.
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As is always the case with testing, the raw numbers don’t tell the full story, but their context can be useful to divine nuggets of useful information.
The context here is that when Hamilton hauled himself out of his new scarlet SF-26, he sounded upbeat for the first time in months.
“It’s been a really enjoyable week, honestly,” the seven-time champion said at the end of the test.
“In terms of just understanding the car and the balance, we have a lot less downforce than previous years. The car generation is actually a little bit more fun to drive.
“It’s oversteery and snappy and sliding, but it’s a little bit easier to catch and I would definitely say more enjoyable.
“We definitely have work to do to improve of course, like everybody does, but I think we’ve had great debriefs. Everyone’s really on it. I really feel the winning mentality in every single person in the team more than ever, so that’s a positive.”
It’s the first hint we’ve got that the new regulations might swing Formula 1 back into Hamilton’s favour after four wretched and increasingly dispiriting seasons.
Barcelona preseason test, times by team
1. Ferrari: 1:16.348 (Lewis Hamilton, day 5)
2. Mercedes: 1:16.445 (George Russell, day 4)
3. McLaren-Mercedes: 1:16.594 (Lando Norris, day 5)
4. Red Bull Racing: 1:17.586 (Max Verstappen, day 5)
5. Alpine-Mercedes: 1:17.707 (Pierre Gasly, day 5)
6. Haas-Ferrari: 1:18.393 (Esteban Ocon, day 5)
7. Racing Bulls-RBPT: 1:18.451 (Arvid Lindblad, day 4)
8. Audi: 1:19.870 (Nico Hülkenberg, day 5)
9. Cadillac-Ferrari: 1:20.349 (Sergio Pérez, day 4)
10. Aston Martin-Honda: 1:20.795 (Fernando Alonso, day 5)
11. Williams-Mercedes: no time
Rare has Hamilton looked much like his championship-winning self since the regulations changed in 2022. After winning six of the previous eight world titles, the Briton slumped to a career-low seventh in the 2024 standings and suffered his first season with a podium in 2025.
Some of the responsibility lies with Mercedes and Ferrari, neither of which was a regular winner over the last four years.
But the regulations also appeared to play a role in his struggles.
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Hamilton thrives on being aggressive on the brakes and loading up the front axle, at which point he coaxes some rotation from the loose rear axle, beginning the turn-in phase before he’s even lifted off the brakes.
But the ground-effect cars didn’t like being driven in that way. Because they had to be run at as low and as stiffly as possible, they weren’t set up to dive down on the brakes in the way that Hamilton needed them to.
The car’s unwillingness to co-operate was at its worst in qualifying — and it was therefore unsurprising to see Hamilton’s usual one-lap advantage over his teammate vanish.
“There’s not a single thing I’ll miss about these cars,” he said in Abu Dhabi last year. “This generation was probably the worst one, I would say.”
The new generation of car, however, is closer in philosophy to the generations that preceded the 2022 changes. The sport has returned to having so-called stepped floors — that is, where the plank running down the middle of the floor is the lowest past, meaning the airflow underneath the car can’t be ‘sealed’ to create the ground effect.
They therefore don’t have to be run as low or as stiffly as their predecessors. In fact we’re seeing with some teams the return of aggressively raked ride heights — that is, when the rear of the car is higher than the front — which is reminiscent of cars built a decade ago, when Hamilton was in his pomp.
It’s perhaps for that reason the Englishman seemed to walk away from Barcelona satisfied with what he felt — and optimistic about Ferrari again.
“Everyone’s positive and incredibly enthusiastic,” he said.
“And then just to see the mileage that we’ve been out to get the last couple of days, due to just so much great work from all the people back at the factory, which I’m really grateful for because having consistency, not having problems — of course there are always small things, but we didn’t really have any downtime moments. I’m sure perhaps they could potentially come over the next weeks, but it’s [been] a really, really solid couple of days.”
Barcelona preseason test, cumulative mileage by team
1. Mercedes: 502 laps (2337.8 kilometres)
2. Ferrari: 440 laps (2049.1 kilometres)
3. Haas-Ferrari: 391 laps (1820.9 kilometres)
4. Alpine-Mercedes: 349 laps (1625.3 kilometres)
5. Racing Bulls-RBPT: 319 laps (1485.6 kilometres)
6. Red Bull Racing: 304 laps (1415.7 kilometres)
7. McLaren-Mercedes: 290 laps (1350.5 kilometres)
8. Audi: 243 laps (1131.7 kilometres)
9. Cadillac-Ferrari: 164 laps (763.7 kilometres)
10. Aston Martin-Honda: 66 laps (307.4 kilometres)
11. Williams-Mercedes: 0 laps (0.0 kilometres)
He warned, though, that no-one had a real sense of relative performance after the opening test, with teams keeping their cards close to their chests so early in the campaign.
That will be the case particularly for Ferrari, which has talked openly about bringing an A-spec car to testing before heavily upgrading its machine in time for the first grand prix in Australia.
“I mean, we’re under no illusions — we know we’ve got work to do,” he added. “Mercedes have done great running. I think Red Bull and Haas did some great running as well.
“There may be some big leaps that we’re going to need to take. Development’s going to be key. Just really making sure we leave no stone unturned and we’re just really clear and concise with our communication and the decisions we take.
“It’s going to take all of us to be at our best. I’m just seeing that everyone’s really coming with new energy this year, which is great.”
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