Fred Vasseur hails ‘positive’ Barcelona shakedown for Ferrari
- Henry Eccles
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has said the team's wet and dry running during the Barcelona shakedown was “positive,” after the Scuderia racked up a total of 145 laps on Friday.
On the final day of the ‘unofficial’ pre-season at the Circuit de Catalunya, Ferrari went quicker than anyone across the secretive five-day test thanks to Lewis Hamilton’s 1:16.348 in the afternoon.
With Charles Leclerc also coming third on Friday, a three-day run that started in wet conditions for Ferrari’s SF-26 was brought to an encouraging end, as all eyes now turn to the official pre-season in Bahrain starting on February 11.
Vasseur told F1 TV: “Overall it's a positive session that we had both conditions, wet at the beginning and dry at the end.
“We covered tons of laps all over the week, it's good to put 160 laps on the board each day and this is important in order to collect data and to prepare Bahrain [in the] best conditions.
“But overall, it's a really early stage and the most important [thing] is to be able to complete laps.”
A 'very intense' pre-season ahead, says Vasseur
Lewis Hamilton, Fred Vasseur and Charles Leclerc with the Ferrari team at the 2025 Italian GP - Getty Images
The Ferrari boss also revealed what drivers Hamilton and Leclerc were able to learn across a “very demanding” week, as well as what the Scuderia’s focus will be in the build-up to Bahrain.
“You have so many things to discover, for the team on the engine side, on the chassis side, but also for them in the management of the systems, and so it means each lap we are probably a bit better.
“It's very demanding for the two drivers because they have to not do a full reset compared to the past, but almost, and for sure it's an important week for them.
“I think next week we'll be back at home and it will be very intense to have a look on what we collected the last couple of days, all the data and all the improvement that we have to do, and we have tons of open topics for Bahrain.
“In Bahrain, you have two times, three days. As usual it will be very intense because that is just before race one but then we will fly to Melbourne, but yeah it will be probably much more representative in Bahrain than it was this week.”
Leclerc on Ferrari’s preparations for Bahrain
Charles Leclerc at the 2025 Abu Dhabi GP - Getty Images
After echoing Vasseur’s thoughts that wet weather running in Barcelona was an “invaluable experience” for any wet races to come in 2026, Leclerc also provided insight into Ferrari’s preparation for Bahrain testing.
For the Monegasque driver, aligning the simulator with newly collected on-track data will be the most important task for the Scuderia.
“A full week in Maranello next week [to] work on analysing this test data, lots of simulators and starting to prepare Bahrain,” Leclerc explained to F1 TV.
“Do a couple of tests, and most of all, I think probably the most important part will be the correlation now that we've driven the real car.
"We'll go on the simulator and compare it and try and make it as similar on the simulator than what it felt now in order to then focus on Bahrain and know that we have a good reference in the sim.”
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