F1 Barcelona Grand Prix 2026 Practice Round-Up: Norris Edges Russell As Race Pace Picture Splits

Lando Norris went fastest in FP2 at Barcelona with a 1:15.426, edging George Russell and Piastri in the tightest top three of the 2026 season so far. Norris sat out FP1 for his mandatory rookie session, with Fornaroli covering his car as Russell topped that session by two tenths over Piastri. The single-lap order and the long-run order told different stories. Leclerc’s Medium stint and Verstappen’s Soft run both look like genuine race pace despite finishing fourth and sixth on the FP2 timesheet, and a Virtual Safety Car broke up FP2 after Liam Lawson’s Racing Bulls stopped dead at the pit exit.

Key Points: F1 Barcelona Grand Prix 2026 Practice

• Norris topped FP2 with a 1:15.426, 0.009s clear of Russell and 0.057s clear of Piastri. Russell had been fastest in FP1 by two tenths over Piastri
• Norris sat out FP1 for his mandatory rookie session, with Fornaroli covering his car and finishing fifth
• Leclerc’s seven-lap Medium long run averaged 1:21.7, the strongest race-pace signal of the day, while Verstappen’s nine-lap Soft run averaged 1:21.8
• Norris’s own long run, on Softs already 12 laps old, averaged 1:22.4, slower than both despite topping the timesheet
• Lindblad finished seventh in FP2 against the full grid, while team-mate Lawson’s session ended after eight laps with a suspected gearbox failure
• Track temperatures topped 50°C in both sessions, with Russell, Antonelli, Bortoleto, Stroll, Alonso, Hadjar and Gasly all losing laps to track limits

FP1: Russell Puts Mercedes On Top

Russell posted a 1:16.363 in FP1, two tenths clear of Piastri and just over half a second up on Leclerc in third. Verstappen was fourth, 0.684s back, with Fornaroli fifth for McLaren on his first appearance in an F1 practice session.

Seven rookies ran in FP1 under the mandatory rookie rule. Fornaroli covered Norris’s car and finished fifth, just over eight tenths off Russell’s time. Beganovic took over Hamilton’s Ferrari to run the team’s Barcelona upgrade package, a new front wing, floor, sidepods and engine cover, and finished eighth. Vesti, Iwasa, Aron and Herta filled in for Antonelli, Hadjar, Hulkenberg and Perez respectively.

Williams had the worst of FP1. Browning, in for Albon, never completed a lap after an electrical issue struck the car before he could leave the pits. Sainz stopped in the pit lane early in the session before returning to the garage and rejoining later. Bortoleto twice lost laps for exceeding track limits at Turns 2 and 8 after reporting instability through the corner.

FP2: Norris Edges Russell And Piastri

Norris went fastest in FP2 with a 1:15.426, set during the session’s Soft tyre qualifying simulations. The defending champion was visibly wrestling with a skittish MCL40 through parts of the lap. It was enough to beat Russell’s 1:15.435 by nine thousandths. Piastri completed the top three on 1:15.483, the first driver under 1m16s in the session, having led the opening half on Mediums with a 1:15.724.

Leclerc was fourth, 0.373s off the pace, as Ferrari continued evaluating their Barcelona updates including the revised front wing. Antonelli was fifth for Mercedes, having missed FP1 himself while Vesti covered his rookie session, and reported a long brake pedal during FP2. Verstappen was sixth, having shown good early pace on the Hard before a set of white-banded tyres he found close to undriveable cost him grip later in the session.

Lindblad was seventh, Bortoleto eighth, Hamilton ninth after reporting a dragging sensation down the straights and heavy degradation on his long runs, and Hadjar completed the top ten. Hulkenberg and Bearman followed in eleventh and twelfth, with Lawson thirteenth after his session ended early.

The Sector Story: How Norris Won It

Norris’s lap didn’t come from dominance in any one part of the circuit. The sector splits across the FP2 top ten show three different drivers holding the fastest time in each phase of the lap, and Norris isn’t one of them.

Russell had the fastest first sector, Leclerc the fastest second, Piastri the fastest third. Norris held second or third in all three. Piastri’s sector 3 is the standout single split in the entire top ten, faster than Norris despite Piastri’s overall lap being six hundredths slower, which points to a tyre or run-plan difference between the two McLarens rather than a car deficit anywhere on track.

Long Runs: Leclerc And Verstappen Look Faster Than They Finished

Three drivers produced usable race-simulation stints on different compounds in FP2: Leclerc on the Medium, Verstappen on the Soft, and Norris on the Soft. Lap by lap, here’s how they compared.

Leclerc’s first three laps are the quickest sustained running anyone produced in FP2, all in the 1:20s, before degradation pulls him into the low 1:22s. His seven-lap average, excluding the final in-lap, works out at 1:21.7. On a Friday where his fastest single lap left him fourth, that’s a different picture entirely.

Verstappen’s run is the most stable of the three. Nine laps, almost all in the 1:21s, averaging 1:21.8 on tyres only three laps old at the start of the stint. Red Bull’s car finished sixth on the timesheet but looked like the most consistent long-run package of the session.

Norris’s run is the outlier, and the tyre age explains why. His Softs were already 12 laps old when this stint started, more than double Verstappen’s and significantly more worn than Leclerc’s Mediums. Lap 6’s spike to 1:24.966 looks like a traffic-affected lap rather than pure degradation, but even discounting it, Norris’s average across the other eight laps is still slower than both Leclerc and Verstappen on fresher rubber. The headline lap came from new Softs early in the session. This stint came from tyres that had already done a qualifying simulation and more.

Compounds And Temperature: The Sunday Question

Barcelona’s tyre allocation is a step softer than usual this weekend, C2 Hard, C3 Medium and C4 Soft, the shift flagged in the tyre preview ahead of the weekend. Track temperature touched 50.3°C in FP1 and 50.0°C in FP2. That combination, a softer compound range in temperatures already at the top end, is worth watching into Sunday.

The long runs above already show it. Leclerc’s Medium stint held the low 1:20s for three laps before degradation pulled him into the low 1:22s by lap five, a fast drop-off on the compound that’s supposed to be Barcelona’s race-day baseline. Norris’s Soft stint, on tyres already 12 laps old, told the same story from a different starting point, mid-1:21s giving way to a 1:24 and a run of 1:22s and 1:23s.

If Sunday holds similar or higher temperatures, degradation rather than outright pace could end up shaping the race. A softer allocation in this kind of heat is exactly the combination that turns a one-stop into a two-stop, or a comfortable stint into a defensive one. Worth keeping in mind heading into the tyre strategy preview later in the weekend.

Lawson’s Stoppage And A Busy Race Control Sheet

FP2’s only interruption came around twenty minutes in, when Lawson’s Racing Bulls stopped at the pit exit. He reported that the engine had died, then came back on the radio suspecting a gearbox issue. The car was recovered without a red flag, but a Virtual Safety Car ran for around two minutes while marshals cleared the area. Lawson’s session ended after eight laps, leaving him thirteenth on the timesheet.

That stoppage sat in contrast with the other Racing Bulls. Lindblad finished seventh in FP2, ahead of Bortoleto, Hamilton and Hadjar, in a normal Friday session against the full race-driver field. It does not prove a clean team-mate comparison because Lawson lost most of the session, but it did show the car had pace in the right window.

Behind them, Hulkenberg and Bearman were eleventh and twelfth, with Sainz, Colapinto and Gasly filling fourteenth to sixteenth. Ocon, Bottas, Albon, Perez, Alonso and Stroll rounded out the order, Stroll last and 4.033s off Norris’s pace.

Track limits deletions were a recurring theme across both sessions. Bortoleto lost two laps in FP1 for exceeding the white lines at Turns 2 and 8. Russell and Antonelli both had laps deleted in FP2 at Turns 2, 3 and 10, while Stroll, Alonso, Hadjar and Gasly all lost time to the same rules. Race control also opened an investigation into Alonso for crossing the line at the pit exit, to be reviewed after the session, and showed Perez a black and white flag late on for driving erratically following a Turn 4 incident involving Hadjar.

Coffee Corner Take

Friday did not give Barcelona one clean answer. It gave three. Mercedes had Russell’s consistency. McLaren had Norris’ headline lap. Ferrari and Red Bull had the race-run data that made the timing screen look incomplete.

Leclerc’s Medium stint and Verstappen’s Soft run both look like race pace. Their FP2 positions, fourth and sixth, don’t.

Red Bull do not tend to show everything on a Friday, and Verstappen’s run fits that pattern rather than breaking it. A driver doing 1:21.8s on used Softs while sitting sixth on the timesheet has more in the car than the headline order suggests.

Ferrari brought a serious upgrade to Barcelona, new front wing, floor, sidepods and engine cover, and Leclerc’s Medium stint is the first sign of what it can do. Fourth on the timesheet with that kind of long-run pace behind it is a different car to fourth without it.

McLaren and Mercedes do not run high modes on a Friday either, which is what makes Norris and Russell’s headline times harder to wave away. Going into this weekend, McLaren and Mercedes were the pick to lead Barcelona. Nothing from Friday changes that.

What Friday has not settled is whether McLaren’s pace is the real thing. There is a version of this weekend where the MCL40 is simply the fastest car at Barcelona. There is also a version where it flatters in practice again and the race tells a different story, which has happened more than once already this season. Saturday is the first real test of which one this is.

Racing Bulls had two different stories from the same car. Lindblad put it seventh in a normal FP2 field. Lawson lost his session after eight laps with a suspected gearbox issue. That does not prove a driver gap, but it does prove the car had more pace than Lawson got the chance to show.