F1 2026 testing live: Day 3 start time with McLaren revealing new car in Barcelona – UK Times

McLaren will feature tomorrow for the first time, even though the weather is set to be wet once again.

The question is: will any of the teams who sat out today opt for some wet running tomorrow?

Catch you tomorrow at 8am (GMT) for day three of the pre-season test in Barcelona!

1. Max Verstappen (Red Bull) – 1:19:578 (27 laps)
2. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) – 1:20:844 (66 laps)
3. Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) – 1:31:891 (42 laps)
4. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) – 1:32:872 (57 laps)

In the end, Lewis Hamilton completed 56 laps, with a fastest time of 1:32:872.

Charles Leclerc, who recorded some dry running this morning before the rain came, posted 64 laps and a quickest time of 1:20:844.

That’s 120 laps in one day for Ferrari – I’d say a solid enough start to their testing programme!

The reigning world champions have missed the first two days to maximise development time on their car, but we will see Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri over the next few days.

“Very different to what we’ve been driving so far. So for now, it’s all about trying to understand if everything is working properly, which it kind of did.

“It’s not the best conditions, because it’s been a little bit raining this morning. But actually we did our programme anyway, because again we’re not focused on performance whatsoever.

“We’re more about looking at all the systems that are new on this car and to see if everything works as it should. And it did, so that’s that’s a positive, and then we’ll slowly go through our programme.”

Hamilton had a brief off late on in the session, but recovered the car back on track.

Not a huge surprise, given the slippery conditions…

From images I’m seeing on social media, Hadjar’s rear-end seems to have collided with the barrier at turn 14.

Damage to the car looks minimal…

We’re hearing word that Isack Hadjar has had a crash at turn 14.

The French driver is out of the car and is said to be OK.

But that’ll be that for his running in the RB22 today…

There’s always ways to make promotional days a bit lighter…

“Last year was the first time sitting in a red car and that was so unique as the first time and that will always be the first, but this one, obviously the cockpit’s quite white because we’ve got the livery – it’s great,” he said last week.

“When you come back, you always hope you [still] fit [in the cockpit after the winter break] and fortunately, I fit completely fine.

“It’s just so exciting when they fire the car up and you get the new vibration of the car through your body.And then they open up the [garage] door and you end up going down to Turn 1 where you can see [the fans]. Literally, when they open the door you can see the tifosi.

“That’s something that I will never get used to and something that I’ll never be able to forget. But today is really about reconnecting: reconnecting with the team, reconnecting with that passion of all the people that follow this team.”

We do expect to hear from Hamilton after his outing today, too…