Sky Sports F1Martin Brundle says Mercedes’ “relentless” pace and reliability “cannot be ignored” after the Barcelona game.

Lap times were virtually irrelevant during the five-day event in Spain as teams completed as many laps as possible to test the reliability of the new 2026 cars and collect data.

Despite Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton being one-tenth faster than Mercedes’ George RussellSilver Arrows ranked first with 500 laps and Ferrari ranked second with 440 laps.

“Mercedes never really excelled at ground effect cars. They had the dolphin effect, they never really got it right. A lot of times they didn’t understand the performance of the car and they didn’t know why,” Brundle told Sky Sports F1 Hamilton performed well on Friday ahead of the final days of racing.

“Obviously they look like they’ve met this completely different set of regulations. But we need to see what it’s like at normal track temperatures. It will be about (electrical) regeneration and charging the batteries, but of course they’ll regenerate like any other Mercedes-powered car and probably a Ferrari-powered car.”

Mercedes has dominated Formula 1 following the last power unit regulation changes in 2014 and will be looking to continue its strong performance at the two Bahrain tests on February 11-13 and February 18-20.

Brundle said it was “too early” to judge any team’s concepts, but he believed Mercedes had found its “sweet spot” in the early stages of a new era in F1.

He said: “Your car can have tires that are well-beaten on a cold day and then overheat on a hot day, which is an issue we’ve seen Mercedes have had before.

“I do think we need to be calm about it, but you can’t ignore the relentless pace and reliability that they have. So, obviously, they have a really good, cohesive package.”

Brundle: Question mark for Aston Martin?

Aston Martin completed just 65 laps in Barcelona, ​​the fewest of the 10 teams taking part in the event, while Williams missed the entire event.

But when Aston Martin unveiled its black car on the penultimate day, it attracted a lot of attention because the car was designed to be unlike any other on the track, with an aggressive bodywork that redirected airflow.

Adrian Newey will have a major say in the design of the car for 2026 after joining the team last year, and Brundle believes we need to wait and see if Newey flexes his talents again.

“Adrian’s cars tend to be very even in terms of beautiful, sweeping airflow, and you see that often on all his cars. His cars don’t seem to have as much debris on them as some of the other cars,” he said.

“Sidepods are really hard to weaken and we’ve seen different interpretations, some sidepods, front wings, across the board, which is not surprising with a new regulation like this.

“We have to assume that Adrian has come up with some good ideas, but does he know enough about the Aston Martin wind tunnel and its digital wind tunnel? Will he gain relevance? Does he have the right people around him to interpret his talent? It’s a tall order.

“Adrian said to me that Honda has to play catch-up because they left and then came back. So, there are some question marks there and we’ll see. But you just know Adrian is going to have a vision of how to maximize these regulations.”

Fernando Alonso said after his first day behind the wheel of his new car on Friday that “the car responded well” and that he had put in a “huge effort” to get some testing underway in Barcelona.

Alonso added: “Some teams shoot and adjust in early January and then spend the whole weekend in Barcelona, ​​but for us it’s just the first day.”

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