The Australian completed a solid 79 laps in the morning session, reportedly finishing around eight tenths adrift of Charles Leclerc, who went on to set the benchmark with the fastest time.

Speaking to F1.com, Piastri shared his thoughts on his final morning on track: “It was good — nice to get some solid laps on the board this morning. It was a much smoother day than the first two we’ve had, which was nice. I got into a pretty good rhythm and was able to start feeling what the car is actually like, which was good.

“We tried a few things to see how we can improve it and stuff like that. It's really about running in different configurations and settings to understand what it’s like for race weekends. All in all, I think it was a pretty successful morning.”

Despite the large number of laps completed, Piastri remains fully aware that there is still plenty of work to do on the set-up side, as well as in understanding how the 2026 cars differ from last year’s machines, before any focus can shift to outright performance.

He finally added: “Obviously, the car itself has a lot less downforce than what we had last year, so getting used to that and how it feels has been the biggest thing we’ve started to work through.”

The reigning world champion took to the track for the first time at the Barcelona tests, running the number 1 on both his helmet and car after coming out on top against Max Verstappen and his team-mate in Abu Dhabi.

The Briton admitted it still feels “surreal” to be driving with the number 1 — a sight not seen on a McLaren since 2010, when Jenson Button carried it.

He went on to speak about that milestone, as well as his very first impressions behind the wheel of the MCL40.