León: 'A very positive day' for Campos Racing after topping Day 1

Campos Racing started the 2026 campaign in the best way possible, with Noel León leading the way on the opening day of pre-season testing in Barcelona.

The Mexican driver recorded a 1:25.370 in the afternoon segment, earning top spot as teams and drivers began their on-track preparations for the upcoming season.

León was pleased with his and the team’s efforts overall, though he was not getting carried away despite finishing with the fastest time.

He added that despite a lap that was far from ideal, he was pleased to be able to extract some early pace in the Campos F2 car, and that he was looking forward to making more progress on Days 2 and 3.

“Today is a very nice day. We completed all the runs that we were planning, so that's obviously very nice. We tested a lot of items on the car, so we have a lot of information for tomorrow and for the future, so that was really positive.

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“I wasn’t super happy with the lap. I got a lot of traffic, so I overtook around four drivers on my lap, so it was not ideal. I hope that tomorrow, with everybody in sequence, it will be better.

“But overall, a very positive day. Even beyond the result, I'm very happy with the progress that we made with the team, with all the test items, and we'll keep pushing for tomorrow.”

It was a somewhat slow start to the day as all the teams waited for better track conditions, with ambient and track temperatures low in the opening hour.

However, even with that delay, León says it was still a useful programme, as he adapted to the cold and was able to take lessons from tyre warm-up and preparation into the upcoming days.

“I learned a lot with the cold temperatures, with the tyres, how to prepare them for a quali and for a race run, how to manage it for the race run as well.

“It was a pretty positive day, and apart from that, the test items that we tried on the car looked positive, so that's the main goal of testing: try a lot of things and collect the information and try to put the best package on track for the season.”

Looking ahead to the final two days of on-track running before the opening round of the season in Melbourne, the Campos driver expects the pace to increase, as everyone gains more insight into setup choices and builds confidence with each and every lap.

“I’m hoping for another clean day, where we can complete all the programmes with no issues, and keep testing the items we have planned.

“We are not focussing on being the fastest in the test. We are focussing on trying to be better as a team, trying to be faster with the car, I don't care if we are not P1 tomorrow, just aiming to learn as much as possible.”