F1 opened the new technical era with a tightly controlled, closed-doors shakedown at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Seven of the 11 teams ran on the first day: Ferrari and McLaren deferred their programmes, while Williams skipped the Barcelona shakedown entirely because of car delays. Organisers disabled live timing and limited teams to three of the five test days, making Barcelona a guarded prelude to the longer February Bahrain tests and prioritising system checks and data gathering over public performance comparisons.

The primary story was mileage and reliability. Mercedes split running between Kimi Antonelli in the morning (56 laps) and George Russell in the afternoon (95 laps) for a combined 151 laps (about 700 km). Haas and Esteban Ocon also logged heavy mileage (Ocon roughly 154 laps), and Red Bull completed over 100 laps.

Isack Hadjar put the RB22 top of the unofficial times with a 1:18.159; Pirelli reported Red Bull ran predominantly on the C3 soft compound. Timings and comparisons from the Barcelona shakedown should be treated as unofficial and were several seconds slower than last year’s Spanish Grand Prix practice benchmarks, reflecting the day’s emphasis on durability rather than outright pace.

The day provided the first meaningful look at the new power units and how teams are adapting to revised hybrid and aerodynamic rules. Red Bull debuted its RBPT unit developed with Ford and showed encouraging mileage and apparent reliability; George Russell singled out both Red Bull’s new engine and the Ferrari-supplied unit used by Haas for strong running. New manufacturer entries had a mixed start: Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto stopped at Turn 10 with an issue under investigation, Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas completed a limited programme of roughly 30 laps before Sergio Pérez later ran the car, and Alpine triggered a morning red flag with a sensor problem while Franco Colapinto had a brief wobble before returning to the pits.

With running deliberately restricted and several teams yet to appear, the Barcelona shakedown served chiefly as a reliability and systems check. It signalled the start of a markedly different technical era in F1 but left many performance questions unresolved ahead of the February Bahrain tests.

Sources