Feb.28 (GMM) Barcelona is hoping to make a return to System 1’s official pre-season testing schedule in 2026.
For the mere three days of group operating this 12 months, the groups opted to go to Bahrain – within the hope of predictable, sunny climate.
Nevertheless, regardless of its desert location, the Sakhir monitor has – in Dr Helmut Marko’s phrases – been “colder than Europe” and significantly windy, and an influence outage on day one was “one thing I’ve by no means seen in trendy System 1”.
Not simply that, Bahrain is a novel stop-start monitor, not like the far more consultant curves of the Circuit de Catalunya.
“We gained’t be capable of inform the order at a chilly, moist Bahrain,” mentioned Williams’ James Vowles after rain really fell on the monitor on Thursday.
Bild newspaper experiences that solely Aston Martin and Haas had really ordered any wet-weather Pirelli tyres forward of time.
It’s unclear whether or not the groups are regretting their resolution to go to Bahrain, however Barcelona may very well be again on the menu anyway for 2026.
Many insiders are predicting that, coinciding with the all-new chassis and engine guidelines, System 1 will enable the groups to do three full checks early subsequent 12 months.
Some imagine Barcelona might really host greater than a type of checks.
“Sources on the circuit deny that there’s already an settlement with F1 on this regard,” the Spanish newspaper Diario Sport experiences.
The supply on the Circuit de Catalunya defined: “We’re in talks and in the intervening time we solely know that groups will come right here on the finish of January, however it’s apparent that we wish to have the ability to return to the pre-season calendar.”
Certainly, though excluded from the official schedule, Barcelona has this 12 months privately hosted Ferrari for Lewis Hamilton’s run within the 2023 automobile. A couple of days later, Ferrari and McLaren helped Pirelli with 2026 tyre growth on the similar Spanish venue.
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