Lewis Hamilton got his first real taste of the 2026 Ferrari F1 car on Tuesday, taking part in day two of the Barcelona Shakedown, where only four drivers were involved.
While lap times weren’t officially recorded, reports suggest Hamilton’s quickest effort was a 1:32.872 on a wet track. Charles Leclerc had driven the SF-26 earlier in the day, with Hamilton taking over in the afternoon session.
The Brit completed 57 laps without any major issues, other than a short off-track moment. In total, Ferrari logged 123 laps for the day.
Despite that solid start, Sky Sports pundit Karun Chandhok has voiced early concerns that Ferrari might be putting their driver at a disadvantage heading into the new season.
Karun Chandhok questions why Lewis Hamilton isn’t working with new Ferrari engineer already
Hamilton is currently partnered with Bryan Bozzi, who is Charles Leclerc’s race engineer, as a temporary measure after Ferrari moved Riccardo Adami away from the role he was set to take in 2025.
Chandhok isn’t convinced by this interim arrangement and feels that Ferrari are missing an opportunity for Hamilton to get familiar with his long-term engineer before the season starts.
He may have to compensate by carrying out a private testing programme in older Ferrari machinery. After Barcelona, there are still six days of public running in Bahrain.
“The other thing that’s ringing alarm bells for me is his engineer situation,” Chandhok said on Sky’s Shakedown recap show. “As far as we understand, Bryan Bozzi was running the car today, including for Lewis.
“That confuses me, if I’m perfectly honest. That relationship between driver and race engineer is so, so important.
“They haven’t created a situation where Lewis is building that relationship over the winter. I would have loved to see him doing simulator days, go and get a TPC car.
“You need to integrate that person into the engineering set up of the race team. The public hear the driver-engineer discussion, but that’s just a microcosm of the bigger conversations happening in that engineering office.
Ferrari plan to bring in Cedric Michel-Grosjean for the position – he previously worked with Oscar Piastri at McLaren – but they’re waiting until his gardening leave finishes before he can officially join Hamilton’s side.
Lewis Hamilton’s early Ferrari 2026 lap times compared to Red Bull
In similar conditions, Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar clocked a 1:31.891 on Tuesday afternoon, nearly a second quicker than Hamilton.
It’s important to remember that the two teams may have been running different fuel loads and programmes. While Hadjar ended his session with a crash, Hamilton had a clean first day behind the wheel.
During the dry session, Leclerc posted a 1:20.844, about 1.3 seconds slower than Max Verstappen’s top time of 1:19.578, though again there were plenty of variables in play.
So far, the fastest lap of the test still belongs to Hadjar, who managed a 1:18.159 on the first day in dry conditions.
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