AIX Racing enjoyed a strong start to their 2026 campaign, with Cian Shields topping the afternoon session on the third day of F2 pre-season testing. Rookie driver Emerson Fittipaldi Jr also impressed, finishing third on the timing sheets in the same session.
Despite pre-season testing times not always being representative of where one will sit during the season, the team were satisfied with their effort.
AIX Team Manager Robert Vavrick spoke about the pre-season testing stating:
“I have to say there’s a lot of work ahead of us still. We have a new rookie – Emerson drove this car just last year in Abu Dhabi in the post-season test and now it’s his second experience with it, so there is a potential, we see that, but there’s plenty of work to do.“
“Cian is the driver with one year of experience now which should help him and the team this time around. Generally, we’re happy. We have completed a lot of tests, we have two full race simulations, quali sim on the final day also, so everything has been good.“
“We’re happy overall, we also ran the car once through the gravel on day one, but no damage, all okay. The cars are on track and we’re doing our jobs. So, we’re looking forward to Melbourne.”
AIX gearing up to F2 start in Melbourne
As testing in Barcelona finished on a high note, AIX gears up for Round 1 in Melbourne with a positive mindset. The final preparations before the 2026 F2 season commences in Australia had the team putting in hard work.
“We will prepare the cars here [in Barcelona]. We have one more day tomorrow to prepare the cars, pack up everything and then head off to Melbourne.“
“In general, feeling pretty good ahead of Round 1. Feeling pretty positive, we know there’s work to do, but we are focused on achieving our goals.” Vavrick added.
In the 2026 F2 season AIX Racing finished out the year in ninth place in the Teams’ Standings with 107 points. This time around, they will aim to improve on their standings from their 2025 campaign. With the driver line-up consisting of rookie Fittipaldi Jr and Shields, who remains with the team for his second season, they will hope for strong results across their 2026 campaigns.
