Formula 1 reconvenes in Bahrain this week for the penultimate opportunity to gather data, refine set-ups, and answer lingering questions before the 2026 season begins in earnest.
After five days of running in Barcelona, the paddock arrives at Sakhir with a very unclear picture of the competitive order under F1’s revolutionary new regulations.
Barcelona provided glimpses of form: Mercedes appeared ominously reliable and Ferrari topped the timesheets, as traditional powerhouses McLaren and Red Bull had more subdued programmes.
Sakhir presents an entirely different scenario for the teams, as temperatures will soar, placing far greater stress on power units and tyres.
Here’s what to watch for as Formula 1’s new era takes another crucial step towards its first race.
Will Mercedes confirm favourite status?
Mercedes emerged from Barcelona as the team everyone else is chasing, the W17 demonstrating incredible reliability across all three days.
While its pace for now remains unclear, it’s clear from the shakedown that Mercedes has hit the ground running with its power unit, which proved rock solid not just for the works team but also for its customers.
George Russell and Kimi Antonelli covered 502 laps between them, which is extremely significant in the first test of a new era, regardless of how fast the car was right out of the box.
Speed will be a worry later on, but the Barcelona run was the kind of start every team dreams of when it has both a new car and a new power unit.
However, Bahrain presents an entirely different test.
The Sakhir circuit’s abrasive surface, high temperatures, and demanding high-speed corners will test aspects of the car barely explored in Barcelona’s milder conditions.
Tyre degradation becomes a far more critical factor under the desert sun, and teams that looked comfortable in Spain may find their compounds struggling to last a full stint.
Mercedes will want to prove its impressive testing form wasn’t simply a result of optimal conditions and reliability-focused runs.
The question is whether it can maintain its advantage when the temperatures soar, and the tyres and engines are pushed to the limit.
And if that’s the case, then Mercedes might indeed arrive in Australia as the team to beat.
Is Ferrari’s pace real?
Ferrari topped the (very) unofficial timesheets in Barcelona, with Lewis Hamilton posting the fastest lap of the test right at the end of the running.
The Scuderia completed a solid programme, not quite matching Mercedes’ mileage, but finishing not too far behind after also enjoying a mostly trouble-free week.
Both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were pretty happy with the handling of the car, and the seven-time champion sounded pretty positive about how much more fun this generation of cars is when driving.
Yet the question hovering over Maranello is the same one that’s haunted the team for years: is this genuine progress or another false dawn?
Ferrari has mastered the art of looking brilliant in pre-season only to unravel once the racing begins.
Bahrain will provide crucial answers. The higher temperatures and different circuit characteristics will reveal whether its Barcelona pace was built on solid foundations or flattering conditions.
More telling will be the race runs. Ferrari has historically struggled with tyre management and strategic execution, weaknesses that only emerge over full race distances.
If the SF-26 can maintain a competitive pace across longer stints whilst keeping the Pirellis in their optimal window, perhaps this time the optimism is justified.
Where do McLaren and Red Bull stand?
The two teams that dominated 2025 cut surprisingly low-key figures in Barcelona, although that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
While both teams completed respectable mileage, they weren’t even remotely close to the number of laps a team like Mercedes did.
Both McLaren and Red Bull completed over 200 fewer laps than Mercedes, both teams affected by issues: McLaren suffered problems in the opening two days, and Red Bull’s programme was affected by Isack Hadjar‘s crash.
For teams accustomed to setting the benchmark, their subdued testing has sparked considerable intrigue.
Red Bull’s situation is particularly fascinating given its switch to its own power units, which ran reliably in Barcelona, no small feat for a new engine.
How much was Red Bull genuinely pushing in Spain, though? Running a completely new engine package brings inherent caution and it remains to be seen how hard the team was pushing the power unit and how it will behave in a more competitive set-up.
McLaren, meanwhile, appeared to adopt a similarly conservative approach.
The Woking team delayed its track debut as much as possible and left Barcelona with some 280 laps under its belt after having issues on the first two days of running.
Team boss Andrea Stella, however, was optimistic that McLaren had completed all it set out to do, saying “it was a bit like building an aeroplane while in flight, but we did it.”
Bahrain will force both McLaren and Red Bull to show their hands more clearly.
Can Williams make up for missing Barcelona?
Williams was the only team absent from Barcelona, a decision that team principal James Vowles described as “incredibly painful” but necessary.
The FW48’s delayed arrival resulted from deliberately pushing component release deadlines to extract maximum performance from the new regulations – a calculated gamble that prioritised having the right car over having it ready for the shakedown.
Vowles, however, remains bullish about recovering lost ground.
“I do not believe with six days of testing we’ll be on the back foot,” he insisted, pointing to extensive Virtual Track Testing (VTT) work and valuable feedback from Mercedes, whose power units Williams shares.
With Mercedes runners completing over 500 laps in Barcelona, Williams gained crucial data on its power unit reliability without turning a wheel itself.
However, Vowles acknowledged critical gaps that virtual testing cannot bridge.
“What’s missing is there’s a lot of knowledge for the drivers to inherently perfect what’s going on on track,” he admitted, alongside essential correlation data for aerodynamics and vehicle dynamics that only real-world running can provide.
Bahrain represents Williams’ first opportunity to validate its design choices and begin closing the experience deficit.
With six full testing days, the team remains confident, but the proof will only come once the FW48 finally hits the track alongside its rivals.
How good is Newey’s Aston Martin?
Adrian Newey’s first Aston Martin design arrived in Barcelona surrounded by enormous hype. The AMR26’s aggressive aerodynamic philosophy – featuring distinctive sidepod treatments and what appeared to be a different floor concept – had paddock observers talking.
When a designer of Newey’s calibre joins a team with Lawrence Stroll’s resources, expectations inevitably skyrocket.
Reality proved far more sobering, however. At least in Barcelona.
The team didn’t even arrive until the penultimate day, the car simply not ready in time. This delayed debut immediately put Aston Martin on the back foot. By the time testing concluded, Aston Martin had finished dead last in the overall lap count – not a great stat for a team title aspirations.
The minimal running makes any performance assessment virtually impossible.
Bahrain becomes absolutely critical for Aston Martin. It will need to demonstrate that Barcelona’s delays were merely the consequences of an aggressive development schedule rather than fundamental flaws.
Six days of testing should provide ample opportunity to rack up mileage, correlate data, and prove whether Newey’s magic touch has genuinely transformed its fortunes.
Can Audi overcome its many troubles?
Audi’s debut as a Formula 1 power unit manufacturer was always going to be a steep learning curve, but Barcelona exposed just how challenging that journey will be.
The R26 managed only limited running across the three days, with reliability issues hampering its programme and leaving Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto spending more time in the garage than on track.
Team principal Mattia Binotto acknowledged the difficulties while maintaining a determinedly positive outlook.
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The key revelation came in Binotto’s admission that Audi departed Spain with “a long list of items to work on” – a diplomatic way of saying significant problems remain unresolved.
Audi is at the very start of life as a works team but the fundamental issues at this stage will be a concern if they blight the following tests too.
Bahrain will reveal whether Audi’s engineers have diagnosed and addressed Barcelona’s gremlins or whether deeper systemic issues plague its power unit integration.
The extended testing programme should allow Audi to build the mileage it desperately needs should it find the reliability missing in Spain.
How far off the pace is Cadillac?
Cadillac’s maiden F1 test in Barcelona provided a realistic snapshot of the enormous challenge facing the American manufacturer.
While completing respectable mileage and avoiding major dramas – no small achievement for a brand-new team – its best laptimes languished about 4.5 seconds adrift of the frontrunners, a chasm that underscores the gulf between established teams and newcomers.
But context matters, of course.
Cadillac is effectively starting from scratch, building infrastructure, developing processes, and integrating systems that rivals have refined over decades.
Its focus in Barcelona revolved around fundamental baselines: understanding the car’s behaviour, bedding in systems, and establishing a correlation between simulation and reality.
Outright pace wasn’t the priority, and expecting competitiveness this early would be unrealistic.
Bahrain should offer a more realistic picture of where Cadillac actually stands in terms of pace and whether it is realistic to think it has a chance of escaping the bottom of the field.
Still, for Cadillac, success in Bahrain won’t be measured in laptimes but in lessons learned and foundations solidified. Running within a respectable distance of the front will be a bonus.
