A day of two halves at Paul Ricard, aimed at development testing of the 2026 wet weather tyres. This Pirelli test was run in conjunction with the McLaren F1 team.
In the morning, Oscar Piastri was at the wheel of a McLaren F1 Team MCL60. He was unable to get through the planned number of laps, because of the extremely cold conditions with some parts of the track surface only reaching -2°C. However, he made up for it in the afternoon, fully completing the day’s planned programme.
The opening day of this first test of 2025 ended with the McLaren having completed 120 laps, with a best time of 1’07”008, running on a track layout measuring 3.463 kilometres. Tomorrow, Lando Norris takes over driving duties when the programme focuses on testing full wet and intermediate tyres for the 2026 season, which while maintaining the current 18” rim diameter, feature a slightly reduced width and external diameter on both the front and rear axles.
Even though rain is forecast for tomorrow, that does not rule out the use of artificial sprinklers and water tankers, which were used today when testing both types of tyre.
Photo credit: Morgan Mathurin
