2026 pecking order speculation

[dren]

I expect the PUs to be much closer in performance than when Mercedes had a huge gap over the field in 2014. They are not as complex and the teams have been doing similar things on the controls side, just at a much reduced rate to what they will be next season.

edited... don't know why my post quoted myself.

[BorisTheBlade]

The next big question for me is, what kind of info we will get at all from the closed door testing - which IMHO is laughable.
I can imagine lots of drones hovering around the track which will lead to it being declared unsafe or whatever.
Maybe they just declare it to be public on Day 2.

Absolutely nothing... I expect

It's closed for a reason. January's test will be purely a PU & integration test. Expecty 1-off testing aero kits, zero performance runs & probably a whole lot of red flags

Teams will have enough to do, even without the world looking on, passing judgement

Regarding the goal of these tests this is absolutely my expectation as well.
But I am pretty sure, that everyone and their dog will want some "exclusive" photos of the new cars. So I expect drones as well as spy shots from Catering staff, medical staff and other trackside personnel.

[the EDGE]

The next big question for me is, what kind of info we will get at all from the closed door testing - which IMHO is laughable.
I can imagine lots of drones hovering around the track which will lead to it being declared unsafe or whatever.
Maybe they just declare it to be public on Day 2.

Absolutely nothing... I expect

It's closed for a reason. January's test will be purely a PU & integration test. Expecty 1-off testing aero kits, zero performance runs & probably a whole lot of red flags

Teams will have enough to do, even without the world looking on, passing judgement

Regarding the goal of these tests this is absolutely my expectation as well.
But I am pretty sure, that everyone and their dog will want some "exclusive" photos of the new cars. So I expect drones as well as spy shots from Catering staff, medical staff and other trackside personnel.

The circuit is in a permanent no-fly drone zone, and anyone who's working there who is caught taking photos is gonna get sacked, for sure, so I honestly wouldn't expect much, if anything

[FrukostScones]

Absolutely nothing... I expect

It's closed for a reason. January's test will be purely a PU & integration test. Expecty 1-off testing aero kits, zero performance runs & probably a whole lot of red flags

Teams will have enough to do, even without the world looking on, passing judgement

Regarding the goal of these tests this is absolutely my expectation as well.
But I am pretty sure, that everyone and their dog will want some "exclusive" photos of the new cars. So I expect drones as well as spy shots from Catering staff, medical staff and other trackside personnel.

The circuit is in a permanent no-fly drone zone, and anyone who's working there who is caught taking photos is gonna get sacked, for sure, so I honestly wouldn't expect much, if anything

I expect audio analysis. : ) And definitely photos. Very lame to not have this as normal public test as it used to be in the past. Best spectacle. I mean some people will make recordings of the sound surely. And I mean they won't cordon off the whole area because you can get very close to the track on public land.

[the EDGE]

Regarding the goal of these tests this is absolutely my expectation as well.
But I am pretty sure, that everyone and their dog will want some "exclusive" photos of the new cars. So I expect drones as well as spy shots from Catering staff, medical staff and other trackside personnel.

The circuit is in a permanent no-fly drone zone, and anyone who's working there who is caught taking photos is gonna get sacked, for sure, so I honestly wouldn't expect much, if anything

I expect audio analysis. : ) And definitely photos. Very lame to not have this as normal public test as it used to be in the past. Best spectacle. I mean some people will make recordings of the sound surely. And I mean they won't cordon off the whole area because you can get very close to the track on public land.

Well there are two further tests in February that will both be open to the public

[Xero]

Going by paddock hearsay as we enter a PU formula, I can't look past Mercedes power. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes on top, with McLaren close by.

[FrukostScones]

The circuit is in a permanent no-fly drone zone, and anyone who's working there who is caught taking photos is gonna get sacked, for sure, so I honestly wouldn't expect much, if anything

I expect audio analysis. : ) And definitely photos. Very lame to not have this as normal public test as it used to be in the past. Best spectacle. I mean some people will make recordings of the sound surely. And I mean they won't cordon off the whole area because you can get very close to the track on public land.

Well there are two further tests in February that will both be open to the public

but where are they?

[FittingMechanics]

I expect audio analysis. : ) And definitely photos. Very lame to not have this as normal public test as it used to be in the past. Best spectacle. I mean some people will make recordings of the sound surely. And I mean they won't cordon off the whole area because you can get very close to the track on public land.

Well there are two further tests in February that will both be open to the public

but where are they?

Barcelona.

EDIT: I see I remember wrong, it's Bahrain.

[FrukostScones]

sadly

[Alo_Fan]

Lots of optimism for Aston Martin, but when was the last time a team went from 7th on the grid to 1st? Even counting for Newey and boat loads of extra Wind tunnel and CFD runs, seems like huge gap to overcome. I think we needed to see more from 25.

With new regs anything is possible, look at Honda to Brawn in 2009.

[BorisTheBlade]

Going by paddock hearsay as we enter a PU formula, I can't look past Mercedes power. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes on top, with McLaren close by.

Especially the Thermal Efficiency will be important. With the maximum allowed energy input, you need 48% TE for 400 kW - that is quite a lot for a pure ICE without any harvesting taken into account.
And you will not only need that for acceleration, but for energy recovery as well.
There are 8.000 to 9.000 kWs to be recovered per lap. The easy part is recovering under braking - to recover 350 kW from around 3 mW in total is not exactly rocket science. The harder part is to recover as much as possible under partial load and to minimize the pace loss when recovering under full load.
My rough calculations tell me, that at Barcelona you might recover around 4.000 kWs under braking and around 1.500 kWs under partial load. So there are around 3.500 kWs left for which you need to make a trade-off when in clean air.
When following others, you can store quite some energy for being able to push-to-pass. So, if your car is faster at cornering, you can make up for the laptime there, that you leave on the table while recovering on the straights.

[Badger]

Going by paddock hearsay as we enter a PU formula, I can't look past Mercedes power. I wouldn't be surprised to see Mercedes on top, with McLaren close by.

Especially the Thermal Efficiency will be important. With the maximum allowed energy input, you need 48% TE for 400 kW - that is quite a lot for a pure ICE without any harvesting taken into account.
And you will not only need that for acceleration, but for energy recovery as well.
There are 8.000 to 9.000 kWs to be recovered per lap. The easy part is recovering under braking - to recover 350 kW from around 3 mW in total is not exactly rocket science. The harder part is to recover as much as possible under partial load and to minimize the pace loss when recovering under full load.
My rough calculations tell me, that at Barcelona you might recover around 4.000 kWs under braking and around 1.500 kWs under partial load. So there are around 3.500 kWs left for which you need to make a trade-off when in clean air.
When following others, you can store quite some energy for being able to push-to-pass. So, if your car is faster at cornering, you can make up for the laptime there, that you leave on the table while recovering on the straights.

I wonder how much efficiency is yet to be squeezed out though? After 12 years of developing the same architecture it feels like there should be an element of diminishing returns at this stage on the ICE efficiency.

[Anony Mous Engineerd]

Audi will be on the podium in the first half of the season.
Actually, I'd wager a chocolate chip cookie that they are on a podium in the first 3 races.
METRIC F*CKTONS of Endurance racing hybrids is going to pay off. Their racing teams have tons of experience with decades of changing aero rules in Le Mans, and while everyone was still racing screaming v8s and v10s, they won Le Mans with a freaking diesel.

Relentless German precision engineering.

Cadillac will spend thier way to a top ten finish, probably.

[Dee]

Still don't understand why Ferrari are so overlooked. They wrote off this year to concentrate on 2026, they have a new suspension designer and their engine will be great. They haven't had to change the core design for the new regs...

[madridista]

Lots of optimism for Aston Martin, but when was the last time a team went from 7th on the grid to 1st? Even counting for Newey and boat loads of extra Wind tunnel and CFD runs, seems like huge gap to overcome. I think we needed to see more from 25.

There is plenty of other interesting names that they pulled in besides Newey. (Enrico Cardile, Duncan Eliott, Andy Cowell, Gioacchino Vino...) They have a very strong technical department beyond just Newey in place.

As you mentioned, they have much more wind tunnel time, precisely 43% (!) more than Mclaren, 33% more than Mercedes, 25% more than Redbull, and 18% more than Ferrari if my math is correct.
(224,240,256,272, and 320 runs for AM) respectively.

The team is in a very specific situation that you cant really compare, i dont think its a stretch that they could come out on top. Earlier this year Journalist Ralf Bach claimed to have heard that Honda has gone a different direction in terms of their battery compared to Mercedes, Ferrari and RBPT, so they might have an ace up their sleeve and surprise.


(from FIA 2025 Formula 1 Sporting Regulations - Issue 5 - 2025-04-30)