Charles Leclerc ‘very excited’ for 2026 as he voices hope of ‘bringing Ferrari back to the top’

Charles Leclerc was left feeling “very excited” for the upcoming season following his opening run at the Barcelona Shakedown, with the Monegasque hoping that the opportunity posed by the new regulations can help to “bring Ferrari back to the top”.

While the Scuderia opted not to run on the first day of the five-day event – having stated beforehand that they would begin their programme on Tuesday – Leclerc became the first driver to hit the track as Day 2 got underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

After handing over driving duties to team mate Lewis Hamilton for the afternoon session, the eight-time race winner shared his thoughts on how the morning had gone and spoke positively about returning to the cockpit following the winter break.

“It was nice to be back in the car – back in a very, very all-new car, and very different to what we’ve been driving so far,” Leclerc smiled. “For now it’s all about trying to understand if everything is working properly, which it kind of did.

“It’s not the best conditions because it’s been a little bit raining this morning, but actually we did our programme anyway because we’re not focused on performance whatsoever.

“We’re more about looking at all the systems that are new on this car and see if everything works as it should, and it did so that’s a positive, and then we’ll go through slowly our programme.”

Reflecting on the key takeaways from Ferrari’s first day at the Barcelona Shakedown – and what the squad will have on their checklist for the remainder of the event – Leclerc said: “I think for now, obviously being the first morning, we’ve gone through the very first preliminary check of the car.

“Everything went properly, and little by little we’ll just go through our checklist on the first systems to then eventually what matters most, which is performance.

“But this will come probably a bit later on in those three days and trying to understand first how everything behaves, and then see how it goes.”

And in terms of the general mood in the camp, Leclerc admitted that he is keen to see how Ferrari stack up against their competitors – as well as voicing his hope that the Italian outfit can return to the top.

“I’m very excited,” the 28-year-old explained. “I’m very excited to see what the others have in store and when we start pushing a little bit more to see where we are compared to the others.

“This year is a big opportunity for every team to do something different and to maybe gain a bigger advantage than what we’ve seen in the last few years.

“I hope we are the team that will manage to make the difference but, wherever we start, we will push at the maximum to try and bring Ferrari back to the top. It’s been quite a few years, so I hope that this one is ours.”

With each team permitted to run on three days of the Barcelona Shakedown, Ferrari have two more days available to them during the remainder of the week.