Day 4 of the Barcelona Shakedown delivered a busy and revealing session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with strong mileage, late debuts and the first meaningful indicators ahead of official pre-season testing in Bahrain. With just one day remaining for some teams, several have already completed their allocated running during this shakedown (initial running designed to verify the car’s basic systems).

Running began under cold and cloudy conditions, with Sergio Perez (Cadillac), Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes), Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) heading out early. Oscar Piastri later joined the action, making his first shakedown appearance for McLaren, following the team’s initial run with Lando Norris earlier in the week.

By the lunch break, Antonelli and Hamilton had logged particularly extensive mileage, while Aston Martin were yet to appear. The afternoon session saw Charles Leclerc take over Ferrari duties, joined by George Russell (Mercedes), Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) and further running from Perez. Aston Martin completed their debut later in the day, with Lance Stroll taking the AMR26 out for its first laps.

With the exception of Williams, who chose not to take part in Barcelona, every team has now run during the shakedown. Mercedes and Racing Bulls have used their full three-day allocation, while McLaren, Red Bull, Ferrari, Aston Martin, Haas, Audi, Alpine and Cadillac still had the option to run on the final day.

At Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli praised the amount of work completed: “It was a pretty good shakedown. We did a lot of laps, which is really important, and I’m learning a lot about the car. We go to Bahrain with high confidence.” George Russell echoed that view, highlighting the absence of porpoising and a solid baseline, while stressing that it is still “very early days.”

At Racing Bulls, Liam Lawson underlined steady progress, particularly in terms of reliability, while Arvid Lindblad acknowledged that although the day was not entirely smooth, the learning gained was valuable.

At Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton welcomed the chance to complete a long dry run, calling the mileage accumulated so far “amazing” given the scale of the regulatory reset. Charles Leclerc described the SF-26 as “very different to anything I’ve driven in Formula 1”, embracing the challenge of adapting to a completely new generation of cars.

For McLaren, Oscar Piastri finally took to the track in the MCL40, though his session was cut short by a fuel system issue, a typical part of the early reliability phase. At Cadillac, Sergio Perez described the day as “much better” than the team’s initial outing, noting consistent improvements with every run.

Aston Martin rounded off the day on a positive note, with Lance Stroll praising the team’s efforts and highlighting the scale of the challenge, particularly in the first year of the Honda partnership.

With just one day of the Barcelona Shakedown remaining, attention now turns to the official pre-season tests in Bahrain, scheduled for February 11–13, followed by a second test from February 18–20, ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

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