Formula 1 pre-season testing begins in 2026 with five days of racing at the track in Barcelona, Sky Sports F1 Select our main takeaways from this event.

The test, which was arranged by the 11 teams themselves rather than Formula 1, was designed to provide them with the opportunity to test the new cars for the first time in 2026 following the introduction of new power unit and chassis regulations.

Media were not invited, but daily highlights and interviews with drivers and key team personnel were provided, along with a steady stream of information shared from the pits sky sports’ Sources paint a fairly clear picture of what’s going on.

Each team is allowed to race for five days at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, running from Monday to Friday.

Teams now have some time to prepare for two official test races organized by F1, taking place in Bahrain from February 11-13 and 18-20 respectively, followed by the season-opening Australian Grand Prix from March 6-8.

Ominous performance for long-running Mercedes

Even before chassis design for these cars begins in early 2025, there have been rumors in the paddock that Mercedes’ strength in new project engines will make them the team to beat in 2026.

A week before Barcelona, ​​Mercedes had already fired warning shots when they held a filming day at Silverstone. While most other teams only did a few laps on the day of filming, the W17 completed 67 laps of the British Grand Prix field.

Unlike some of its leading rivals in recent years, Mercedes is ready to start first thing on Monday morning in Barcelona and move on to Silverstone.

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli completed a combined 500 laps over the three days of racing, the highest mileage recorded by any team.

They also seemed to have good pace, finishing at the top of the track on days two and three, with Russell’s time of 1:16.445 still the second-fastest of the week, although the team didn’t perform at its best on Friday’s track.

While insisting Barcelona’s lap times were unimportant as the race was largely exploratory and took place in extremely cold conditions, Russell described the week as “very positive” and Antonelli said the team would head into Bahrain with “a high degree of confidence”, summing up a very strong performance.

Ferrari starts on the front foot

After an extremely disappointing 2025, Ferrari has also made what looks like a very productive start to the new era of F1.

Not racing on Monday meant their first day on the track was spent in the rain, but after that the Italian team performed solidly. They had logged more laps than Mercedes on Thursday, taking the total for the week to 440 by the end of Friday.

At the end of testing, Lewis Hamilton set the fastest time of the week with a time of 1:16.348, one-tenth faster than Russell’s benchmark time on Thursday and two-tenths better than Lando Norris’ best result at McLaren on Friday.

Not that a man of Hamilton’s experience would let such things go to his head.

Despite this, the seven-time world champion was upbeat in his post-race interview, considering he has never made much of a secret about his distaste for testing, even saying he found the week “very enjoyable”.

Hamilton said on Thursday the team had performed “better” than last year in testing ahead of his debut when his preparations were severely hampered by technical issues, before concluding on Friday describing it as a “solid first week” that allowed them to “really build from here”.

Additionally, and perhaps equally noteworthy, he himself has had the chance to enjoy the vast improvements in red’s second season, with Hamilton stating that he has found this new generation of cars “more enjoyable” to drive than their ground-effect predecessors.

It’s a big year ahead for the team and their two drivers, and so far so good.

Red Bull surprise themselves with smooth start

While there’s a lot of positive buzz surrounding the new Mercedes power unit, it’s fair to say that the first offering from Red Bull’s new engine division has been met with the opposite negative reception.

Milton Keynes are building their own power unit for the first time in their history, with even their team principal Laurent Mekis admitting at the end of last season it was a “crazy” pursuit.

Most expected there to be some major issues with the power unit, which is used by both Red Bull and junior racing bull racing teams this season, but that has not been the case.

Isack Hadjar was the latest driver to take on the challenge of Max Verstappen’s team-mate, completing 108 laps on Monday, with Liam Lawson completing a further 88 for the Bulls.

“Surprisingly, it was very productive. We managed to run more laps than we expected,” Hajar said on Monday night.

There appeared to be no major faults with either team’s power units all week, with Red Bull’s only drama being Hajjar’s crash in the rain on Tuesday, which did raise questions about their decision to race on the day given the sunny weather forecast for Thursday and Friday.

The time it took to fly replacement parts from Milton Keynes meant they couldn’t race again until Friday, but Verstappen made the most of the final day, completing 118 laps without a hitch.

Newey designed first Aston Martin to be eye-catching

We had to wait the better part of a week to see the first Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin, but when it finally appeared on Thursday night, it was worth the wait.

The team announced Monday that they would be on track as early as Thursday, meaning they won’t be able to use up all three days of running.

This is reportedly the result of Newey, who took over as team principal at the end of last season, pushing for the design window to be opened as late as possible.

The AMR26 immediately stood out from the other cars in the pits.

Sky Sports F1 Ted Kravitz commented: “The nose cone looks wider and fatter than the Mercedes, McLaren and Red Bull. The sidepods also look a bit bigger than the Red Bull. There’s a bit of a rake in there, which is Newey’s trademark.”

Such is Newey’s record of excellence that he has a good chance of producing a good car, but it remains to be seen whether all the ingredients for Aston Martin’s success are in place.

They were the only team with a Honda-built engine and had planned to quit the sport before a U-turn that could have left them lagging behind some rivals in power unit production.

Teething issues for new team

The whole purpose of the event is for the team to get over teething issues before official TV testing in Bahrain next month, so it makes perfect sense that it won’t be all smooth sailing.

With the exception of Williams, which was unable to compete due to a failure to prepare its car, and Aston Martin, who arrived late, the teams with the most problems were unsurprisingly the newcomers to F1.

The all-new team Cadillac seemed to have encountered some problems, causing them to complete only 164 laps in total, the fewest of the teams that ran for three days.

Audi took over the former Sauber team and became a full-fledged team, but also encountered some problems, especially earlier in the week.

While these teams may not have quite hit the ground running yet, the idea is that with another six days of testing in Bahrain, they will be able to put in a respectable performance in the first round of the season in Melbourne.

The increased mileage this week suggests they’re at least on the right track.

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