What happened on day 1 of the Barcelona Shakedown? & more related news here

Day 1 of the Barcelona Shakedown has officially ended, with several teams and drivers sending their 2026 cars onto the track for the first time at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Following the opening session, F1.com has put together everything you need to know in our Day 1 report…

What teams and drivers raced?

Kimi Antonelli was first out for Mercedes and gained significant mileage during the morning. The Italian enjoyed a full day behind the wheel, with team-mate George Russell joining him in the afternoon.

Gabriel Bortoleto also made an early appearance for Audi amid sunny and mostly dry conditions in Barcelona. At one point, the Brazilian found himself racing very close to the track with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson and the Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas, two other drivers who joined the race in the morning.

While Bottas relinquished control to teammate Sergio Perez after lunch after racking up a decent number of laps, Lawson remained behind the wheel throughout Monday. Alpine also had one driver throughout, with Franco Colapinto taking to the track on the A526.

Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar was in action ahead of his first season with the team. The Frenchman enjoyed a great race in the RB22, as did his compatriot Esteban Ocon in Haas, which was the last team to join the fray on Monday morning, but completed a considerable number of laps.

Who is left to apply?

It looks like McLaren and Ferrari will begin their respective programs at least on Tuesday, as both confirmed ahead of the Barcelona Shakedown that they would not be racing on the opening day of the event.

Aston Martin has also not joined in yet, and the British team has announced that it intends to put its car on track on Thursday and Friday. Williams, for his part, has stated that he will not participate in the Barcelona Shakedown.

What have the drivers said?

Bottas was one of the first to share his reflections on the day, with the Finn admitting it was “great to be back” after his year on the sidelines as a Mercedes reserve.

“I really enjoyed getting back on track; it was my first time driving this car, so it’s good to be out there,” he explained.

“Obviously, performance-wise, I wouldn’t say too much yet; the main thing is that we’ve already done some running. In the end, we had a slightly longer run, so these are the first steps to debugging and making everything work better.”

At Haas, Ocon shared his initial impressions: “I feel good. I think, first of all, the incredible effort of the team to leave the car.” [on track] at 9:20 this morning, but the car was ready at 9:00, we were waiting for better track conditions and a few things we wanted to be perfect before we left.

“From Fiorano testing with Ollie [Bearman] So far, people have climbed mountains to make this car work and it’s been really good. We are dealing with the plan, learning as we go.

“Of course, we have a very busy schedule for the day, so it will be difficult to complete it, but for the first real day of driving, I think it’s going very well so far. We’ll keep pushing to make sure all the details are covered, but we have more days than usual, which is good.”

After being the first out on the track, Antonelli called his initial race a “very interesting morning.” The Mercedes driver continued: “It’s very nice to be back in the car. It’s a huge learning experience: we’ve been trying to fine-tune the power unit and the car, and this afternoon the car has improved a lot.”

“It’s a constant learning, so the most important thing is to try to get the race, all the laps, as many laps as possible to tune the PU and the car in the best way possible.”

Like Antonelli, Bortoleto will begin his second season in 2026. The Brazilian admitted that his day was not without problems in Barcelona, ​​explaining afterwards: “It was, I would say, a bit of a short day. We did a pretty decent job in the morning, doing some laps, trying some things. We were going in the right direction.”

“But as we all expected, it’s a shakedown: anything can happen and we expect to find problems here and there in the car. We found a couple of problems that unfortunately took us out of the day since the morning, so I didn’t run much today. But this kind of thing was to be expected; we are finding everything now to hopefully not find them in the next test or in the first race of the year.”

“But in general, I would say that when we had positive results [it was] It’s good to have an idea of ​​the new car, the new regulations, the power unit and everything. Hopefully the next day I drive I can do a few more laps.”

At Alpine, Colapinto seemed happy with a “good” opening day in Barcelona. The Argentine admitted that he is happy to have preseason to prepare for the first time since he arrived in F1.

“It’s very different, but of course it’s what I needed in previous years, and getting this mileage, this race and all the learnings so early in the season is very helpful,” he explained. “I’m going to try to make the most of it and work a lot with the team.

“There are some exciting days ahead. Hopefully we can have a good couple of days and do more kilometres, get to know the car a bit more and, for my part, do a few more laps and then get ready for Bahrain.”

Hadjar was also satisfied after his first shakedown day with the Red Bull, commenting: “It was quite productive. Surprisingly, we managed to do a lot more laps than we expected. Everything went quite well.”

“We only had minor issues, so it’s pretty impressive considering it’s our first day with our own engine, so everything definitely went smoothly.”

After a good number of laps, Lawson offered a summary of his day: “It’s very interesting at this point: new cars, new power units and very, very different driving, so for us [we’re] At the moment I’m adapting, but so far so good.

“We did a good amount of laps today, obviously we learned a lot, we had some little things along the way that are expected for Day 1, but I think [we’re] in a decent place.”

What’s next?

Day two of the Barcelona Shakedown continues on Tuesday, where, as already mentioned, McLaren and Ferrari look set to join the fray.

There is likely to be some variation between programs in the coming days, with teams being able to race on any three days of the five available at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.