F1 fans (thousands of them) track ‘flying car’ in testing drama

Formula 1 fans anticipated the arrival of one F1 team to the Barcelona shakedown and even tracked their flight into the city. In their literal thousands.

Three days of testing had passed by without the racing green of Aston Martin, who confirmed that they would only run on two of the three permitted days of the five-day shakedown, with the intention to run on the Thursday and Friday.

This meant that on Wednesday evening, thousands of super-committed fans tracked any incoming aircraft arriving in Spain. One account tracked a 54-year-old Antonov on Cavok Air CVK7020 from Birmingham to Girona-Costa Brava airport, and claimed on Wednesday that the '2026 Aston Martin car is currently on route to Barcelona.'

Another fan, however, wasn't quite convinced this aircraft was transporting Aston Martin's car, and wrote: "This is unconfirmed and unlikely.

"Aston Martin has a partnership with Atlas Air for freight needs, and F1's official contract is with DHL. They'd likely use these partners if air freight was needed.

"Most likely scenario: The car was shipped in Aston Martin team trucks - Standard procedure for European running. No need for obscure cargo aircraft."

The fan then backtracked later, and shared pictures of Aston Martin labelled boxes being unloaded from the Antonov, and wrote: "Turns out it was an Aston Martin flight after all!

"Aviation Photographer Sammy Gould was on site, and got some shots of a suspiciously F1-car shaped box carrying AMR markings being loaded."

Will Aston Martin run on Thursday at Barcelona shakedown?

On Wednesday evening, Aston Martin posted three pictures to their social media of their trucks and motorhome, confirming they were in Barcelona, and wrote: "All set for a shakedown."

In the morning on Thursday it had been confirmed that Mercedes, Ferrari, Racing Bulls and Cadillac had all been out on track, but there was no sign of Aston Martin in the early hours.

The AMR26 got out on track late in the afternoon on day four as it recored its first laps of the 2026 era.

What is a shakedown?

A shakedown refers to the first time teams can properly run their cars on track, like a pre-season health check.

Teams get the chance to test out all of the new design features on their new cars without limitations, with no maximum limit put on the number of laps they are allowed to do each day.

The private shakedown means the press do not have access, and only a small crew are admitted to film content for teams and drivers.

Nevertheless, Sky Sports F1 will be on hand to guide viewers through the Barcelona shakedown, with a testing highlights show broadcast at 9pm (GMT) every night of the week of the test. The show will then be available on Sky F1's official YouTube channel.

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