DEBRIEF: What happened on Day 1 of the Barcelona Shakedown?

Day 1 of the Barcelona Shakedown is officially complete, with a number of teams and drivers sending their 2026 cars out on track for the first time at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. After the opening session, F1.com has rounded up everything you need to know in our Day 1 debrief…

Which teams and drivers ran?

Kimi Antonelli was the first out of the blocks 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 largely dry conditions in Barcelona. At one stage the Brazilian found himself running close together on track with Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson and the Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas, two other drivers who joined the running in the morning.

While Bottas handed over to fellow returning driver Sergio Perez post-lunch after racking up a decent number of laps, Lawson remained behind the wheel for the whole of Monday. Alpine were also fielding one driver for the duration, with Franco Colapinto taking to the track in the A526.

Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar was in action ahead of his first season with the squad. The Frenchman enjoyed extensive running in the RB22 – as did his countryman Esteban Ocon over at Haas, who were the last team to join the fray on Monday morning but completed a sizeable amount of laps.

Who is still to run?

McLaren and Ferrari look set to start their respective programmes on at least Tuesday, having both confirmed prior to the Barcelona Shakedown that they would not run on the opening day of the event.

Aston Martin are also yet to join, with the British outfit announcing that they intend to put their car on track during Thursday and Friday. Williams, meanwhile, have stated that they will not be participating 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 that it was “great to be back” following his year on the sidelines as a Mercedes reserve.

“I really enjoyed getting back on track – this was the first time I drove this car, so it’s just good to be out there,” he explained.

“Obviously performance-wise I wouldn’t say much yet – the main thing is we’ve got some running done. At the end we got a little bit longer run in, so these are the first steps of debugging and getting everything to work better.”

Over at Haas, Ocon shared his initial impressions: “Feeling good. I think first of all an unbelievable effort from the team to put the car down [on track] at 9.20am this morning – but the car was ready at 9am, we were waiting on better track conditions and a few things that we wanted to be perfect before we went out.

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

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

After being the first to hit the track, Antonelli labelled his early running as a “very interesting morning”. The Mercedes driver continued: “It’s very nice to be back in the car. It’s a massive learning – we’ve been trying to tune the PU and the car, and this afternoon the car has improved a lot.

“It is a constant learning, so the most important is trying to get the running, all the laps, as many laps as possible in order to tune the PU and the car in the best way as possible.”

Like Antonelli, Bortoleto will be entering into his sophomore season in 2026. The Brazilian admitted that his day had not been without its issue in Barcelona, explaining afterwards: “It was I would say a bit of a short day. We were doing a pretty decent job in the morning, putting some laps on board, testing some things. We were going in the right direction.

“But as we all expected, it is a shakedown – everything can happen, and we expect to find issues here and there in the car. We found a couple of problems that unfortunately put us out of the day from the morning, so I didn’t run much today. But it was expected, these types of thing – we are finding everything now to hopefully not find it in the next test or in the first race of the year.

“But overall, I would say when we were running positive [it was] good to have a feel with the new car, the new regulations, power unit and everything. Hopefully on the next day I’m driving I can get a few more laps onboard.”

Over at Alpine, Colapinto seemed content with a “good” opening day in Barcelona. The Argentinian admitted that he is pleased to have the pre-season to prepare for the first time since arriving in F1.

“It’s very different, but of course it is what I was needing in previous years, and to get this mileage, this running and all the learnings this early in the season is very useful,” he explained. “I’m going to try to make the most out of it and work a lot with the team.

“Exciting days ahead – hopefully we can have a good next couple of days and get some more mileage in, get to know a bit more the car, on my side get a few more laps in and then getting ready for Bahrain.”

Hadjar also appeared pleased following his first day at the shakedown in the Red Bull, commenting: “It was pretty productive. Surprisingly we managed to do a lot more laps than we expected. Everything went pretty smooth.

“We had only minor issues, so it’s quite impressive considering it’s our first day with our own engine, so that was definitely smooth.”

Following a solid 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 to drive, so for us [we’re] just adjusting at the moment, but so far all good.

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

What’s next?

Day 2 of the Barcelona Shakedown follows on Tuesday, where – as already mentioned – McLaren and Ferrari look set to join the fray.

There will likely be some variations across programmes in the days ahead, with teams permitted to run on any three days across the five available at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.