Oscar Piastri laid down a fastest lap time of 1:07 as he ran Pirelli’s new 2026 tyres on a cold and wet Paul Ricard circuit on Wednesday.

That, at face value, was considerably quicker than the F1 track record of 1:32.740 that was set by Sebastian Vettel at the 2019 French Grand Prix but Piastri was running on much a shorter 3.463km layout.

120 laps for Oscar Piastri with a best time of 1:07

Compared to the 5.8km layout that was used by F1 in 2019, Piastri’s time translates to a 2-minute lap on the same length of circuit as what Vettel covered.

Formula 1 is introducing all-new cars for the F1 2026 season, cars that will be smaller and lighter, and hopefully more nimble. They’ll be powered by new engines with the sport dropping the MGU-K and adopting a 50/50 split between internal combustion and electrical power.

Even the tyres are being tweaked with narrower front and rear Pirelli tyres, reduced by 25mm on the front axles and 30mm on the rears. That’s expected to save four to five kilograms of the FIA’s overall 30kg weight-saving target.

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The F1 teams have been helping Pirelli refine the 2026 tyres with Aston Martin kicking off the process last year as they put a mule car, a modified AMR23, on the track at the Circuit de Catalunya with reserve driver Felipe Drugovich behind the wheel.

Mario Isola, Pirelli Director of Motorsport, said at the time: “In this very early stage, it’s important to understand the correlation of the simulation of the loads and the actual reproduction of them on track.

“To do this, the cooperation of the teams is vital and therefore, I want to thank Aston Martin for having provided a modified car to enable this test to take place.

“Now our engineers will analyse the data, while in parallel, continuing to develop the product for the next test session.”

Other teams have contributed with McLaren the latest to put in the laps for Pirelli, as Oscar Piastri tested a modified MCL60 at Paul Ricard on Wednesday.

Although icy cold conditions in the morning meant he wasn’t able to get through the planned number of laps, he made up for it in the afternoon when he brought his day’s tally to 120 laps.

That was 415.56km as Pirelli and McLaren were running on a short 3.463km layout.

Interestingly, F1’s tyre supplier revealed his best time for the day was a 1:07.008. That means Piastri’s best time translates into a 2:02 at the same length as Vettel’s lap of 1:32.

It must be noted though, that Piastri were running wet weather tyres on an artificially soaked track whereas Vettel’s time was in the dry at the French circuit.

McLaren and Pirelli will continue lapping the Paul Ricard circuit on Thursday as they test their wet-weather tyres with Lando Norris in action. Although some rain is forecast, the tyre manufacturer says they will use the sprinklers and trucks to ensure wet weather running.

Ferrari will take over McLaren in assisting Pirelli with their 2026 preparations when Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc run a ‘mule version’ of the SF-24 at Barcelona in early February.

Pirelli’s data comes as the FIA’s head of single-seater matters Nikolas Tombazis revealed the new 2026 cars would only be 15 per cent slower than today’s editions after motorsport’s governing body tweaked the regulations.

“There has been an increase of performance of the car by probably about 50 points of downforce,” he said.

“This has brought the performance from what maybe was minus 40% compared to current cars, to around minus 15% in terms of downforce.

“In terms of performance, the resulting lap time of the cars is very close to current cars. All that has been done as was promised in June.”

“If we had made no change,’ he said. “I guess it would have been probably approximately another two seconds slower.”

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