2026 Watch

[Number 1 Jasper]

I think "Ched" cleared up the confusion.
Sadly I am now wondering if 2026 will be dominated by Merc and Redbull whose engines seemingly will have an edge, unless the others can play any kind of catch up. Not long before we will see.
Hope we are surprised.

For me there’s still a question mark over reliability of the Redbull / Ford engine .

It’s been fast and reliable so far , but it’s early days and it’s their first ever engine ( RB I mean ) .

 

[ched999uk]

For me there’s still a question mark over reliability of the Redbull / Ford engine .

It’s been fast and reliable so far , but it’s early days and it’s their first ever engine ( RB I mean ) .

While I agree it is their first engine, the number of experienced engine designers, testers, etc that they managed to lure from other F1 engine manufacturers they have a huge amount of experience.

While other engine manufacturers had existing engine facilities for other engine development Red Bull have started from a bare piece of ground and built everything from scratch. That may have given them advantages in that they have not had to adapt existing facilities, re use existing equipment etc.

I do think it's very impressive that all the new PU's managed a reasonable number of laps in testing. As you say the question is how they actually perform in 'combat' that's going to be interesting.

 

[Sportista]

The other thing I think will be key is performance degradation over life. All the manufacturers made significant strides in this area during the last PU rules set and I suspect it’s the hardest element of the PU design. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the thing it takes RedBull Powertrains the longest to catch up on.

 

[Justjazz]

By the sound of it they seem to be talking of 15 to 20bhp extra from the ice at 536 bhp. OK so every little helps as Asda say but it's very small difference, maybe 4%.

Actually after working that out 4% extra power on the same fuel flow is significant!

Red Bull seem to be staying quiet - maybe that's just Mekie's way of working. I have read that the Red Bull 18:1 compression engine isn't actually race ready.

One week today proper testing starts with, proper timing, speeds, and cameras.

4% does sound a lot, my simple brain thinks that could be a half to a second a lap bearing in mind the ICE is not the only source of power. Would be disappointing if that was the case. My gut feels there is more dependent on driver capability and adaptability this year vs the recent years, if that is the case there could be some surprises.
Will soon see.

 

[Sportista]

Not sure how much you can trust this, but McLaren seem to think that at least the RedBull, Ferrari and Merc PUs are all pretty close.

It’s certainly true that nothing we’ve seen so far suggests that Merc have access to performance that Ferrari can’t match. We obviously only saw headline times, but I’m guessing the teams will have long run data, speed trap data, acoustic analysis of the PUs etc. and the noise around this hasn’t increased since Barcelona.

Most of the feedback from the tests seems to be centred around the challenges of managing the energy and also how quickly the teams are learning and how they think it’s going to take them half a season or so before they have something that’s relatively optimised, if that’s true it could take a while before the nuances of the cars (rather than teams knowing how best to run them or the drivers ability to execute that) start to be the dominant factor in overall performance.

 

[Big Ern]

If true, it would likely mean we have Merc, RedBull, McLaren fighting for the championship, and Russell, Piastri, Norris and Verstappen going for the drivers title - if that’s what we get, I’d be pretty happy and it would probably the best (most contenders) season for 15 years? Other than adding Ferrari and Leclerc on top I honestly don’t know what more one could wish for?

I'm still hoping for a WDC fight between Alonso and Stroll tbh.

 

[Sportista]

I'm still hoping for a WDC fight between Alonso and Stroll tbh.

Other than chronic unreliability afflicting only Alonso’s car, I can’t see any way that’s likely!

 

[ched999uk]

It sounds like Red Bull have changed their stance on the 'hot' compression ratio! They are now siding with the other pu manufacturers who are calling for a hot test and the compression ratio to be maintained at 16:1 while the engine is hot! There was recent talk that Red Bull may not have a race ready hot compression ratio pu that is reliable enough!
This would suggest that either they don't have a reliable way to increase the hot compression ratio or that they think it will hurt Merc more than them!

Also just read that back in October the line about compression ratio test being at ambient temps was added!!! I believe before that there was no mention of a temp that the compression ratio was tested at before then! Maybe Merc asked for clarification so a temp was added?

I wonder how the other dimensional tests are specified - i.e. are the wing deflection tests limits set at ambient, do the bore and stroke measurement have to be done at ambient etc.....

 

[Justjazz]

When you look back over the years, engineering uniqueness was a factor that advanced the sport. Spectators applauded it while other manufacturers rushed to catch up. It made the sport unpredictable and actually exciting. In recent years many have moaned (including me) that the regulations took away some of the technology developments and the associated excitement they create. While I am not keen on a Mercedes domination I hope they are allowed to carry on with their chosen innovation. Toto is right, the other teams should get their S**t in order.

 

[Sportista]

It sounds like Red Bull have changed their stance on the 'hot' compression ratio! They are now siding with the other pu manufacturers who are calling for a hot test and the compression ratio to be maintained at 16:1 while the engine is hot! There was recent talk that Red Bull may not have a race ready hot compression ratio pu that is reliable enough!
This would suggest that either they don't have a reliable way to increase the hot compression ratio or that they think it will hurt Merc more than them!

Also just read that back in October the line about compression ratio test being at ambient temps was added!!! I believe before that there was no mention of a temp that the compression ratio was tested at before then! Maybe Merc asked for clarification so a temp was added?

I wonder how the other dimensional tests are specified - i.e. are the wing deflection tests limits set at ambient, do the bore and stroke measurement have to be done at ambient etc.....

This is how the rule changed.

C5.4.3 No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0. The procedure
which will be used to determine this value may be found in the document FIA-F1-DOC-C042.

C5.4.3 No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0. The procedure
to measure this value will be detailed by each PU Manufacturer according to the Guidance
Document FIA-F1-DOC-C042 and executed at ambient temperature. This procedure must be
approved by the FIA Technical Department and included in the PU Manufacturer homologation
dossier.

The FIA-F1-DOC-C042 doesn’t seem to be publicly available (and I’m sure would add useful context), but it seems like two things have changed in terms of the rules.
1) The engine manufacturer has some ability to propose how the value is measured
2) It’s now specified that the measurement must be taken at ambient

When you search the rules for ambient there aren’t any other dimensional rules that are specified to be measured in such a condition, the other references are for things like engine inlet temps, or fuel temps etc.

 

[Sportista]

When you look back over the years, engineering uniqueness was a factor that advanced the sport. Spectators applauded it while other manufacturers rushed to catch up. It made the sport unpredictable and actually exciting. In recent years many have moaned (including me) that the regulations took away some of the technology developments and the associated excitement they create. While I am not keen on a Mercedes domination I hope they are allowed to carry on with their chosen innovation. Toto is right, the other teams should get their S**t in order.

I’m with you on this, it’s exactly the same as flexible aero in my mind, we have a test/measurement process and a limit - outside of that, it’s part of the sport to find the advantage and realise it. Personally, I hope it’s not too powerful and/or that other teams have found interesting unique opportunities that will keep them competitive, but that’s a personal/selfish point of view and irrelevant in terms of this being something clever they should have the right to benefit from at least during the 2026 season.

 

[Sportista]

Cadillac revealed their livery during the NFL Super Bowl last night - two sided like the original BAR livery. Seems to be generally well liked online, but personally I’m a bit underwhelmed, it’s neither good nor bad and I do wonder how well it will come across on TV. The most striking thing is that the commercial department has a lot of work to do, to find some sponsors.

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[ched999uk]

This is how the rule changed.




The FIA-F1-DOC-C042 doesn’t seem to be publicly available (and I’m sure would add useful context), but it seems like two things have changed in terms of the rules.
1) The engine manufacturer has some ability to propose how the value is measured
2) It’s now specified that the measurement must be taken at ambient

When you search the rules for ambient there aren’t any other dimensional rules that are specified to be measured in such a condition, the other references are for things like engine inlet temps, or fuel temps etc.

Great info, cheers.
I wonder if the ambient temp part of the test was due to an enquiry from Merc? ie they asked for a clarification and FIA added the spec?

 

[Sportista]

Great info, cheers.
I wonder if the ambient temp part of the test was due to an enquiry from Merc? ie they asked for a clarification and FIA added the spec?

This is why I would be interested to see that test doc. Did Merc ask a question around that, “you say you’re going to measure the engine like x, but if you do with ours then you’ll get a bad value because …”, which resulted in first change to an approved but engine specific procedure and then Merc followed up with “ok which parts of that doc can we vary, can we spec the conditions?” and the FIA responded “no must be at ambient we’ll put that in the rules so it’s fixed” and that’s opened up this opportunity?

In general I wonder how they measure this, is it based on pressure, is it based on physical measurements, do they calculate it from CAD and then laser scan the parts to verify they match…?

 

[ched999uk]

Testing starts tomorrow!!!!

McLaren	Piastri	Norris	Norris	Norris	Piastri	Piastri
Mercedes	Russell	Antonelli	Antonelli	Russell	Russell	Antonelli
Red Bull	Verstappen	Verstappen	Hadjar	Hadjar	Verstappen	Hadjar
Ferrari	Hamilton	Leclerc	TBC	TBC	TBC	TBC
Williams	Sainz	Albon	Albon	Sainz	Sainz	Albon
Racing Bulls	Lindblad	Lindblad	Lawson	Lindblad	Lawson	Lawson
Aston Martin	Stroll	Stroll	Alonso	Alonso	Stroll	Stroll
Haas	Ocon	Ocon	Bearman	Bearman	Bearman	Ocon
Audi	Bortoleto	Hulkenberg	Hulkenberg	Bortoleto	Bortoleto	Hulkenberg
Alpine	Colapinto	Gasly	Gasly	Gasly	Colapinto	Colapinto
Cadillac	Bottas	Perez	Perez	Bottas	Bottas	Perez

Bahrain F1 Testing Lineup
[th]Team[/th][th]Wed AM[/th][th]Wed PM[/th][th]Thu AM[/th][th]Thu PM[/th][th]Fri AM[/th][th]Fri PM[/th]

Interesting that Alonso only has a single day all other teams seem to be splitting driving duty 50:50!
Maybe Aston will allow Alonso to test for 2 days at the second test?
Seems like Sky only broadcasting the final hour of each day 3 to 4pm (uk Time).

 

[Sportista]

Some references from last year at Bahrain:
- Race Pole: 1:29.841
- Race Fastest Lap: 1:35.140
- Testing fastest lap 1:29.545 (was George Russell, probably means McLaren could have done a high 1:28)

I think this will be a fairly average circuit, so really we’re looking for benchmarks to be around +2s compared to last year.

Things I’m looking out for.
- Ferrari and Mercedes did laps the others couldn’t/didn’t match at Barcelona - was that advantage circumstances or a sign (as the two works teams who should come out of the blocks fastest) they have an edge over the rest?
- How much did Williams miss Barcelona, how long does it take them to get into the midfield pack and where in that pack are they by the end of the week.
- How do the cars really look in different corner types? I’m a bit worried from what I’ve seen from various bits of footage that they are a bit dull in the high speed corners, at least from entry to apex.
- How much trouble are Audi and Aston in, can they get significant running and show some good at least midfield pace?

 

[Sportista]

Tyre allocation per team.

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[Sportista]

New Audi sidepods - quite different to everybody else so far.

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[ched999uk]

Just watching live timing and chat on youtube:

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Interesting to see throttle and brake pedal data. Seems like they have to be very gentle on throttle and are coming off throttle then a little pause before hitting brakes.

Can't really read anything into the times apart from Red Bull's PU seems to be doing well, and Honda not doing well!!

 

[Sportista]

It’s probably a bit of misdirection from Toto, but it’s interesting, because this is the aspect that I think will truly define which PU is best in this era.

"Look at the energy deployment today. They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else. I mean, over consecutive laps.

"On a single lap we have seen it before, but now we have seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same kind of straightline deployment. I would say that as per today, on the first official day of testing, which is always with a caveat, they have set the benchmark today."