Ferrari and Haas were in action at Mugello this week as Pirelli continued its testing of 2026 tyres.

The programme was due to focus on defining the hardest compounds from the 2026 range, however the Weather Gods had other ideas.

On Thursday Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman were on track for Haas, at the wheel of a mule car based on the VF-24, adapted to accommodate the 2026 tyres. The Frenchman completed 40 laps, the quickest in 1:21.943.

Very changeable weather made life difficult for the engineers, with rain hitting the track in the late morning. However, this presented an opportunity to try some 2026 intermediate tyre solutions on the very probing Mugello circuit. On these tyres, Bearman completed 30 laps, with a best time of 1:34.381.

On Friday the weather once again hampered the efforts of the Pirelli engineers, who were now working in conjunction with Ferrari. Charles Leclerc was first out on track for the Maranello team, followed by Guanyu Zhou.

The day's programme focused on a comparison of the harder compounds in the range, but the intermittent rain, at times quite heavy, significantly reduced the running time on slicks. As a back-up plan, several runs were completed on intermediate tyres as well as on extreme wets.

In the morning, Leclerc was only able to do 25 laps, all on intermediates, the quickest in a time of 1:34.914. In the afternoon, Zhou ran on intermediates and extreme wets, before managing to fit in a handful of runs on slicks. The Chinese driver completed 75 laps, the best in 1:22.012.

"Unfortunately, the weather didn't help," said Mario Isola. "That's a shame, as Mugello is not just a wonderful circuit, but also very demanding on tyres and it would have been useful to get in some consistent running to define the hardest compounds.

"Now we will have to finish the work of analysing the little data we collected over these two days and cross-reference it with that from previous sessions, in order to reach the necessary conclusions.

"As for the softer compounds, we still have two more days of testing after the Mexico City Grand Prix to finalise their homologation.

"If we want to look for positives, at least we were able to test the wet weather tyres on a real track, gathering data and insights which will be useful for medium to long term development."

Lewis Hamilton was due to take part in the test alongside Leclerc but withdrew. While an official reason was not given, his recent posts to social media would suggest that this was due to his dog Roscoe's deteriorating health.

While, as animal lovers, we can totally understand how he feels - we've been there - it hardly helps his relationship with the team or the Italian media.