Barcelona Shakedown Day 2: Holding The Line In Difficult Conditions

Barcelona Shakedown Day 2 was a day that didn’t tell us much information, as only Ferrari and Red Bull ran in mixed and wet conditions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. With the teams’ programmes hampered by rain and red flags, with limited running, the second day of Formula 1’s 2026 shakedown was never going to be about pace or lap times. Day 2 was about checking systems, clocking mileage, and understanding just how these new cars cope, especially when conditions are not settled.

Key Points – Barcelona Shakedown Day 2

• Only Ferrari and Red Bull ran on track
• Mixed weather dominated the day, with extended wet running
• Ferrari completed heavy mileage across both drivers
• Red Bull split running between Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar
• Running was interrupted by incidents and changing conditions
• No meaningful performance conclusions could be drawn
• Several teams chose to wait rather than compromise their run plans

Ferrari Open The Programme In Difficult Conditions

Ferrari were first out when the lights at the pit lane turned green, with Charles Leclerc opening the Ferrari 2026 sessions with the SF-26’s first day of running. The programme was deliberately basic; it was full of installation laps. System checks. Baseline behaviour. There was no attempt to set flying laps into a track that was already threatening rain, with the black clouds circling above.

Conditions got worse by mid-morning, forcing Ferrari into wet-weather running probably earlier than planned. Leclerc bolted on the Pirelli wet tyres as the grip fell off, prioritising laps and data over lighting up the timing screens.

Lewis Hamilton took over in the afternoon as the weather continued to cause havoc. He went out on wet and intermediate runs, focusing on tyre behaviour, energy deployment, and drivability, clocking up those laps. He also managed a trip to the gravel during the session, a reminder that even the experience of seven world championships offers no shortcuts with these cars in low-grip conditions.

By the end of the day, Ferrari had banked around 120 laps of data from their Day 1. In isolation, the number means little. In context, it represents a full systems shakedown carried out exactly as intended. Especially with the customer team data also gathered the previous day.

This was not Ferrari pushing a car to its limits.
This was Ferrari learning and checking and getting day one over in difficult conditions.

Red Bull Gather Data Until The Risk Outweighed The Reward

Red Bull joined later in the morning, using the brief dry window to get four-time world champion Max Verstappen out on track after also running on Day 1 with just Isack Hadjar. Max completed a short but focused run, though his session also included a harmless slide into the gravel at Turn 5 that triggered a very brief red flag and underlined how little margin existed on a cold, low-grip surface. It seems the new conditions and the new regulations had a thing for collecting world champions in the gravel.

In the afternoon, Isack Hadjar once again got behind the wheel. Red Bull continued collecting data on the new Red Bull–Ford powertrain engine until he was involved in an incident at Turn 14 in the tricky damp Barcelona conditions, bringing a red flag and having his day finished with the car on the back of a low loader making its way back to the pits under tarpaulin. The car sustained damage and did not return to the track. Hadjar himself, according to the team, was unhurt and walked away after the crash, probably the only good news from the afternoon run for the Milton Keynes team.

This meant that Red Bull logged 78 laps in total for their second day of running. The number itself is irrelevant. The team, unable to continue after the Hadjar crash, was surely dealt a small blow to their programme, leading to questions over when Red Bull can return the damaged RB22 to running due to spare parts, but with the team only able to complete one more day and three days left, time is on their side.

Who Did Not Run And Why That Matters

McLaren kept the covers on their new 2026 car, having already confirmed they would run across the final three days of the five-day window. They released a statement saying the opening sessions were used for full car assembly and system verification, choosing patience over compromised running, leaving us all to wonder just what the current champions have built with just a few renders of the test camo livery to go off.

Aston Martin are still not ready; they are continuing garage work ahead of their planned Wednesday arrival of their car. The team is ready to go; the car, it seems, not quite, as they plan a Thursday and Friday appearance.

Mercedes, Audi, Alpine, Haas, and Cadillac did not run after completing Day 1, with some having already completed laps on the opening day. They opted not to spend one of their limited three running days in conditions that offered little return, whilst the factories and engineering teams no doubt crunched the data instead. Williams, of course, as we know, are not in Barcelona after their withdrawal from the event last week.

With teams restricted to three days across the event, when you run matters just as much as how you run, and with the rules very simple, once you leave the pits you have taken part in that day’s running, waiting the storm out seemed the best option.

Coffee Corner Take

Day 2 changed nothing for us really. And that is the point we need to take away from this shakedown.

Yes, there was a “fastest” lap on the unofficial timing screens. There always is. With only two teams running and most of the day spent in wet or mixed conditions, the unofficial timing screens carried even less relevance than usual.

The weather in Barcelona turned the second day into a test of patience, process, and restraint. Ferrari learned how their systems behave across tyre compounds in difficult conditions and got their shakedown underway. Red Bull gathered data but got left with a repair bill for their efforts after the Hadjar incident.

This day was not about performance.
It was about getting more miles and more data, as well as a quick look into how they operate in the wet, which may prove handy to the two teams that ran.

Day 3 will look different. McLaren are due to enter the party, Day 1 teams will be itching to put that crunched data to the test and get back out there, and Aston Martin are expected to arrive with their car at some point as well. By the end of Wednesday, we should finally start to see some reliable runs and the drivers getting a real feel for these new cars.

There is also a quiet pressure building beyond the track for some teams, with Audi and Cadillac both losing valuable time on Day 1 due to technical issues. When they return, the focus will be on recovery, correlation, and confidence, and clocking more laps to help the engineers better understand their cars.

Day 2 showed us very little, but Day 3 is shaping up to be a potentially busy day on track as the constructors’ champions enter the arena and, hopefully, the Adrian Newey AMR26 rolls into the Aston Martin garage as we get to see what these two heavyweights have designed.