Shakedown: Hamilton tops the final day

The first five-day test of the season, held in Barcelona under completely closed conditions, has come to an end.

It was a fairly busy day, with eight cars running on track. All teams continued their programs today, except Mercedes and Racing Bulls, which had completed their three permitted days of running the day before, as well as Williams, which did not attend the initial tests.

Despite major regulatory changes, the results proved fairly predictable. It is still too early to talk about the outright pace of the new cars, but team reliability has been higher than expected.

Red Bull finally managed to rebuild its car following the crash that occurred on the evening of the second day — the necessary parts were delivered from the factory yesterday, allowing Max Verstappen to return to the cockpit today.

Fernando Alonso garnered significant attention as he tested the new Aston Martin, designed by Adrian Newey, for the first time. After completing just four laps on its debut yesterday, the AMR26 encountered no major reliability issues today.

Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of Day Five and the entire week in the SF-26. Toward the end of the session, several teams switched to Soft tyres, and Hamilton completed his lap in 1:16.348.

The next tests will take place in Bahrain on 11–13 February and 18–20 February. Those sessions will not be conducted under the same level of secrecy and are expected to be more informative.