Revealed: Lewis Hamilton’s lap time v Charles Leclerc in latest Ferrari test
Data from Lewis Hamilton's latest Ferrari F1 test has revealed a comparison with Charles Leclerc.
Lewis Hamilton completed his first outing in Ferrari’s most recent F1 car at Barcelona on Tuesday.
The seven-time world champion returned to action for Ferrari at the Spanish Grand Prix venue nearly a week after crashing the team's 2023 car at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Along with McLaren, Hamilton and new teammate Charles Leclerc are taking part in a two-day Pirelli tyre test to assist their 2026 development.
Unlike Hamilton’s previous private testing with Ferrari, this programme was for Pirelli’s benefit and dictated by F1’s tyre supplier.
The focus of the test is evaluating the latest constructions for the 2026 tyres and the C1, C2 and C3 hard compounds.
Ferrari and McLaren are using modified versions of their respective challengers, but it was Hamilton’s first taste of driving the SF-24, having conducted his previous two tests in the SF-23.
Hamilton faster than Leclerc
Lando Norris set the fastest time of the day with a 1m15.215s and completed 159 laps in McLaren’s MCL60 from 2023.
Next up on the leaderboard was Hamilton, who posted a 1m15.930s with 87 laps. Hamilton was the quicker of the two Ferrari drivers, though lap times mean next to nothing in the test.
Leclerc managed 86 laps with the Monegasque setting a best lap of 1m16.060s.
It is believed that Ferrari also ran their SF-23 for a TPC (Testing of Previous Cars) on Tuesday to give both Hamilton and Leclerc additional time to make up for the setback caused by Hamilton’s incident last week.
Pirelli’s tyre test will continue on Wednesday. Hamilton and Leclerc will once again split driving duties for Ferrari, with Oscar Piastri taking over from Norris at McLaren.
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