Lewis Hamilton described his first significant track experience with the SF-26 as “very challenging” due to the wet conditions, but the seven-time world champion was pleased with Ferrari’s “productive” run plan given the circumstances facing the teams on Tuesday.

After skipping the opening day of action at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Ferrari deployed their new car for its first of three days of testing on Tuesday. However, the wet conditions proved challenging for drivers, and Hamilton was one of those affected.

“Very challenging today, obviously, because it started raining at 10:30, so obviously Charles had a little bit of dry running, but then it’s been wet all afternoon, so figuring out how to get the tyres working,” Hamilton said, delving into his first test outing with his new car.

“It was really productive, I think we got about 120 laps or something like that; given it’s in the wet conditions, and we had a red flag and that, I think that’s pretty solid. So, really proud of everyone back at the factory for getting the car to this point, and we got a lot of information on the car today. We definitely need to keep it up, lots and lots to do, but a good first day.”

Fortunately for Ferrari, there were no significant reliability issues to report from their first test outing. This was not the case for all 11 teams, as Audi suffered technical gremlins on both Monday and Wednesday, resulting in two red flags. Cadillac also ran into issues after their debut outing.

“It could be so much worse on such a big regulation change,” Hamilton continued. “So to get through the day without too many major – there were no major issues, it’s just small little increments that we’re trying to improve on. I think it’s great, and as I said, we just need to try and get some more days like this.”

​​”There was some good learning on the wet,” Red Bull boss Laurent Mekies said, reacting to the crash. “Unfortunately, it didn’t end up in the right way, but what is important [is] that Isack is okay and we’ll try our best to repair the car and to see what’s coming next. It was a very tricky condition this afternoon, so very unfortunate that it finished that way.

“But it’s part of the game. Again, very tricky, a lot of work to do on many aspects and these sorts of things can happen. These difficulties today came after a very, very positive day yesterday in terms of the number of laps Isack could complete in the car and in terms of his learning and development and feedback to the engineers.”