Driving Scuderia Ferrari HP’s SF-26 for the entire third and final day of the second and last pre-season test at Bahrain’s Sakhir Circuit was Charles Leclerc. He continued with the planned development programme, completing 135 laps (731 km). Over the three days here in Bahrain, the car completed a total of 336 laps (1818 km), which, added to the previous test, brings the total to almost 6200 km.
Morning. Charles took to the track, focusing initially on a series of set-up checks, while at the same time evaluating car and tyre behaviour. Attention then turned to longer runs on the C3 and C2 compounds, gathering useful data in the very hot conditions. By the end of the morning, the Monegasque had completed 80 laps (433 km). His best time was a 1’33”689.
Afternoon. Charles was back behind the wheel of the SF-26 after the break, focusing on performance runs, fitting sets of both C3 and C4 tyres, on which he set his best time of 1’31”992. Overall, it has been an intensive and productive day, rounding off the team’s preparation work. The SF-26 will next be seen on track in Melbourne, on Friday 6 March, for the first free practice session of the Australian Grand Prix, the opening round of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
Charles Leclerc #16
The test day was very smooth, we ran through our programme and tested all the things we planned to. In terms of performance, it’s still difficult to understand where we really stand because teams are hiding their true form, so it’s important not to focus too much on lap times and prepare for the first race. We will build step by step and try to understand how to extract the maximum from our car, we have a lot of data to analyse before we arrive in Melbourne and we will see how things go once we are there.
Fred Vasseur - Team Principal
It has been a positive test overall, but we have to keep in mind that the priority was to complete a lot of mileage and build a strong foundation for the season. From this point of view, the test was productive and allowed us to gather valuable data and improve our understanding of the car.
As always in testing, it is very difficult to draw conclusions in terms of performance, as we don’t know the programmes of the other teams. Our focus was on ourselves and on making continuous progress.
