Lando Norris sports golden helmet in post season testing

F1's 35th World Champion Lando Norris donned a gold edition of his iconic helmet as drivers completed post season testing in Abu Dhabi.

All ten teams were on track on Tuesday for both a Pirelli tyre test and Young Driver Test, in order to give both the teams and Pirelli vital data ahead of a huge regulation change in 2026.

For the tyre test, 'mule cars' were ran which are slightly modified versions of the 2025 cars in order to somewhat replicate the new cars for 2026.

Despite this, those in the paddock were keen to point out that they are almost nothing like the soon to be seen 26' cars and as such not a huge amount could be learnt in terms of performance.

This is in part due to the fact that one of the biggest changes in the new regulations are the overhauled engines, and the 'mule cars' were running the current spec engines.

As for the tyres themself, they are narrower than this years, however are not just trimmed down versions, and have had to be completely reworked - hence the importance in this test.

The day saw 25 different drivers take to the track with notable drives for Arvid Lindblad at RB, Isack Hadjar at Red Bull and Paul Aron for Sauber rather than Alpine.

Cadillac were notably absent from either test, as the running is seen as part of the 2025 calendar and as such, they were unable to bring their 2023 modified Ferrari they have been running.

Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli topped the lap count for the day with 157, while Haas' Esteban Ocon was only able to complete four laps due to an engine issue.

As for the young drivers test, Aston Martin's Zak Crawford topped the timings with a 1:23.766, ahead of Paul Aron and Luke Browning.

Team	Pirelli Test Driver	Young Driver
McLaren	Lando Norris/Oscar Piastri	Pato O'Ward
Mercedes	George Russell/Kimi Antonelli	Frederik Vesti
Red Bull	Isack Hadjar	Ayumu Iwasa
Ferrari	Charles Leclerc/Lewis Hamilton	Dino Beganovic
Williams	Carlos Sainz/Alex Albon	Luke Browning
Racing Bulls	Liam Lawson	Arvid Lindblad
Aston Martin	Stoffel Vandoorne	Jak Crawford
Haas	Ollie Bearman/Esteban Ocon	Ryo Hirakawa
Kick Sauber	Nico Hulkenberg/Gabriel Bortoleto	Paul Aron
Alpine	Pierre Gasly	Kush Maini