On track at Jerez with Alpine and McLaren
The third session of testing for Pirelli in 2025 began today at the Circuito Angel Nieto at Spain’s Jerez de la Frontera with the collaboration of the BTW Alpine F1 team and McLaren F1 Racing, the latter team having already taken part in the year’s first two tests at Le Castellet and Barcelona.
Just like last week in Catalonia, this session was focused on the development of solutions for the slicks in the variety of tyres for 2026. In particular the teams tried out different combinations of constructions and compounds, which ranged from C2 to C4.
As the day progressed Patricio O’Ward took to the track at the wheel of the MCL60 while Pierre Gasly drove the A523 Alpine, both ‘mule’ versions of the cars that competed in the 2023 championship. The Mexican driver racked up a total of 153 laps while the Frenchman completed 157 laps. The fastest laps the drivers recorded in the course of the day were 1’19’’484 for O’Ward and 1’18’’092 per Gasly, though these were far from meaningful marks given the specifics of the different work programmes Pirelli carried out with the two teams.
The test session at the Circuito Angel Nieto will continue tomorrow with a partial change of line-up on track. In accordance with the scheduled programme McLaren will be replaced by the Mercedes mule car driven by George Russell. The Englishman will be on track alongside Alpine for the day’s two sessions: Jack Doohan will be driving for the French team.
