2026 Watch

[ched999uk]

Just had a quick check and the teams are technically allowed to use an unlimited number of engines, batteries etc during the testing.
I can't seem to find out about the cost of engines during testing if they fail?
The PU cost is about $1.75 to $2million per power unit to the teams. So I'm guessing that the PU developers yearly budget of $130 million for developing the PU must take the hit for any failures?

I'm assuming that the teams can only run on 3 of the 5 'pre test' days at Barcelona, no half days. So that probably means they could use a max of 6 to 9 PUs i.e. 2 per day maybe they could possible change 2 a day plus 1 overnight so maybe 9 PUs.

Looking forward to seeing what info comes out this week.

 

[Sportista]

I don’t think failures are included in the cap, I recall this was a point of contention last year, when McLaren questioned whether RedBull were including Max’s Brazil engine change, (which seemed to be for performance reasons rather than due a failure) into their cap.

I’d guess they’ll run them as long as they can, without taking risks of losing track time. I’d guess that’s better for learning about reliability, performance degradation etc. or maybe they do all that stuff on dyno and don’t need additional track data?

 

[Sportista]

I'm assuming that the teams can only run on 3 of the 5 'pre test' days at Barcelona, no half days.

I saw this somewhere, that’s correct - I think as soon as you leave the pits it counts as a day, even if you break down immediately.

It’s one of those weird F1 anomalies: you put on a test to help people get reliability, then if someone’s unreliable they get a huge penalty and no help, whilst those that are initially reliable get to pound round learning more and more. I don’t know why they didn’t use the far more sensible option of a distance limit across the 5 days - like the other “test” (filming) days have.

 

[Sportista]

RedBull (running today) and McLaren (skipping today) images have been released. Similar sidepods on both, I note, more extreme versions of the Merc ones to my mind. The RedBull front wing doesn’t seem to have the centre dip all the others have, the McLaren nose is quite extremely drooped, like an anteater (it reminds me of a prior rules era, but I can’t bring which one to mind?). RedBull circular air inlet is unusual and quite large, but also doesn’t look to be anywhere near as big as the RB.

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[Sportista]

Rumours starting to emerge that Aston are also struggling to be ready for this test, unlikely to run before Wednesday and a strong possibility of doing <3 days. With them being the only Honda team, this could be a much bigger deal than for Williams. I was a bit concerned about Audi’s safe approach, but they’re ready and running today and if the alternative is to be missing running, you have to say it seems like a better choice.

 

[ched999uk]

Seems like some info is leaking out of the first test:
Team Driver Laps Best time
Red Bull - Isack Hadjar 44 1:18.83
Merc Kimi Ant 56 1:20.70
Alpine Franco Col 28 1:21.35
Racing Bulls Liam Law 42 1:21.86
Haas Estaban Oc 67 1:24.65
Cadillac Valteri Bot 33 1:24.65
Audi Gabriel Bor 27 1:25.30

Good to see Cadillac get some laps in - that's got to be a major achievement considering it's a completely new car.
Also good to see Audi, and Red Bulls running with their first ever F1 engines.
Fingers crossed Aston and the Honda engine will hit the track soon.

Seems Like the Audi stopped on track due to a technical issue and the Alpine also stopped.

Is it a coincidence that both Red Bull engine powered cars covered 42 or 44 laps?

 

[Sportista]

Seems like some info is leaking out of the first test:
Team Driver Laps Best time
Red Bull - Isack Hadjar 44 1:18.83
Merc Kimi Ant 56 1:20.70
Alpine Franco Col 28 1:21.35
Racing Bulls Liam Law 42 1:21.86
Haas Estaban Oc 67 1:24.65
Cadillac Valteri Bot 33 1:24.65
Audi Gabriel Bor 27 1:25.30

Good to see Cadillac get some laps in - that's got to be a major achievement considering it's a completely new car.
Also good to see Audi, and Red Bulls running with their first ever F1 engines.
Fingers crossed Aston and the Honda engine will hit the track soon.

Seems Like the Audi stopped on track due to a technical issue and the Alpine also stopped.

Is it a coincidence that both Red Bull engine powered cars covered 42 or 44 laps?

Good news for Ferrari to have Haas top the mileage charts, too. On the negative side, I wonder if you can read anything into the fact that the Ferrari and Audi powered teams are a step behind the Merc and RedBull ones in terms of pace at this stage?

Hadjar’s best is only 3 seconds off the race lap record, so that’s pretty impressive for day 1 especially considering the conditions (I wonder if they’re running a slightly different layout?). I guess this and being ahead of the Merc and Ferrari that we’ve seen being pushed, is evidence that RedBull engine can be pushed too.

 

[ched999uk]

Good news for Ferrari to have Haas top the mileage charts, too. On the negative side, I wonder if you can read anything into the fact that the Ferrari and Audi powered teams are a step behind the Merc and RedBull ones in terms of pace at this stage?

Hadjar’s best is only 3 seconds off the race lap record, so that’s pretty impressive for day 1 especially considering the conditions (I wonder if they’re running a slightly different layout?). I guess this and being ahead of the Merc and Ferrari that we’ve seen being pushed, is evidence that RedBull engine can be pushed too.

I would say for a first day with very new PUs they have all done quite well.
I guess their simulations are getting closer to read world.
Hopefully towards the last day of testing/pre testing we might see some headline grabbing times or lap counts?

 

[Sportista]

I found some end of day times, this puts the Haas and hence a Ferrari powered car, in amongst the others. Compared to 2014 especially it’s hugely impressive, both in terms of speed and to see teams doing 1-2 GPs of distance.

1 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) 1m18.159s, 107 laps
2 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.537s, 93 laps
3 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +2.030s, 60 laps
4 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +2.541s, 56 laps
5 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +3.142s, 154 laps
6 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +3.354s, 88 laps
7 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) +6.492s, 33 laps
8 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +7.137s, 27 laps
9 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) +7.815s, 11 laps

 

[ched999uk]

I found some end of day times, this puts the Haas and hence a Ferrari powered car, in amongst the others. Compared to 2014 especially it’s hugely impressive, both in terms of speed and to see teams doing 1-2 GPs of distance.

1 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) 1m18.159s, 107 laps
2 George Russell (Mercedes) +0.537s, 93 laps
3 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) +2.030s, 60 laps
4 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) +2.541s, 56 laps
5 Esteban Ocon (Haas) +3.142s, 154 laps
6 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) +3.354s, 88 laps
7 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) +6.492s, 33 laps
8 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) +7.137s, 27 laps
9 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) +7.815s, 11 laps

Little worrying for Audi at only 27 laps for the day!

 

[Sportista]

Little worrying for Audi at only 27 laps for the day!

It is a little, but it could be anything and in 2014 you’d have been pretty pleased with 27 laps. I think you can read in positives, like RedBull have done a lot of laps and been quick, Merc have done even more and also gone similarly quickly, but it’s probably too early to read in any real negatives.

 

[Sportista]

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Found this online, I doubt we’ll find out what times are set on what tyres, but it’s maybe useful in the sense that when RedBull are quick, we can pretty much guarantee they’re on a soft, whereas if Ferrari are a bit off, it’s also likely they’re not.

I do realise I’m saying this like any of the times really matter!

 

[ched999uk]

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Found this online, I doubt we’ll find out what times are set on what tyres, but it’s maybe useful in the sense that when RedBull are quick, we can pretty much guarantee they’re on a soft, whereas if Ferrari are a bit off, it’s also likely they’re not.

I do realise I’m saying this like any of the times really matter!

Interesting that Merc have no Mediums. I'm a little surprised as surely the temps will be quite low (12 to 16 deg C this week) for hards to actually get up to working temps.

It's always fun to speculate as we don't have much info

 

[Big Ern]

I saw a couple of photos earlier, and both cars had inters on and the pit lane looked a bit damp from the overnight rain.

 

[Sportista]

I saw a couple of photos earlier, and both cars had inters on and the pit lane looked a bit damp from the overnight rain.

I think the track was wet/damp to start and dried through the morning, it seems like there’s rain around for most of the week, but only really showers. Tomorrow looks like the worst day and Friday the best, so I wonder how many teams we’ll see tomorrow - I’m expecting it to be pretty quiet could well be just Ferrari.

Looks like Aston are confirmed to just be aiming for Thursday & Friday now, I have a feeling they’re going to struggle in the early phases of the season, there’s been so much churn in that project that it wouldn’t be a surprise if it’s a one of the least mature.

 

[Sportista]

Looks like just Ferrari and (surprisingly) RedBull today, it seems it’s started raining.

 

[Big Ern]

From the photos I've seen it looks pretty wet again, I wonder if the teams not running any laps decided to wait for better weather.

 

[Sportista]

From the photos I've seen it looks pretty wet again, I wonder if the teams not running any laps decided to wait for better weather.

I think McLaren decided this morning not to, but other than that it’s not clear how many were considering to run.

Sounds like RedBull have had a tricky day, Verstappen stopped or had a shunt this morning and now Hadjar has crashed. Ferrari seems to have run ok.

I’ll be interested to see if RedBull also do tomorrow, I didn’t think of it up front, but I can see how it might make sense - if you’re not having to create fixes - to do your testing and then get back to base and start preparing for the next stage.

 

[Big Ern]

Ferrari looking reliable at least, hope it's fast as well.

 

[ched999uk]

I'm intrigued by Aston's late and shortened testing. I do wonder if Adrian being team principal and chief aero, suspension, packaging etc engineer is enabling him to push the development right to the wire, but is it too close to the wire and it's going to bite them?
Will they get enough on track data to correlate their new wind tunnel, cfd etc?
Not to mention a completely new pu from Honda that hasn't been track run at all!
I do think Honda haven't learned from their time with Red Bull in that they need to utilise all grey areas of the regs to their advantage - they have always seemed to avoid grey areas and stick 100% to the letter of the rules and their intention. I seem to remember some stories, early on in their partnership with Red Bull about Honda not pushing the rules and regs to the limits - sort of being too honorable.