2026 Pre-Season Testing

[AR3-GP]

Alpine only done 15 laps so far. Does anyone know what the problem was?

[Jambier]

Seeing all the cars side by side now, I am kind of disappointed in the diversity of designs compared to the beginning of the 2022 rules.
Some variation in sidepod design and some novel details here and there but nowhere near what we saw back then.
Maybe Aston/McLaren bring something more radical in the next days or somebody brings a B-spec in the next tests like Merc in 2022(Ferrari?)...

Newey did say that at the start of 2025, about the ruleset being quite restrictive when he first looked at them, but he seemed to mention he saw some areas. Curious to see what solutions he has come up with.

That was expected indeed with this ruleset
But performance gap will be huge at start

[Unc1eM0nty]

Seeing all the cars side by side now, I am kind of disappointed in the diversity of designs compared to the beginning of the 2022 rules.
Some variation in sidepod design and some novel details here and there but nowhere near what we saw back then.
Maybe Aston/McLaren bring something more radical in the next days or somebody brings a B-spec in the next tests like Merc in 2022(Ferrari?)...

The design boxes are quite restrictive. The Electrical BS makes it even worse.

Agreed, we're back to the competition it being an engine formula again with little else to differentiate the cars.

I say engine formula but its now an efficiency formula. All the compression ratio stuff is interesting but peak power will be limited, fastest over race distance is all that matters.

We'll be seeing push to pass one lap then lift an coast the next, rinse and repeat

[deadhead]

https://www.youtube.com/live/7GOpAio5M3 ... mEvtBb2vz6

[De Wet]

https://www.youtube.com/live/7GOpAio5M3 ... mEvtBb2vz6

Thanks Mate.

[Emag]

Very early days, but Hadjar is pushing it a little bit. No driver has touched those sector times so far and there's decent mileage too, with RBPT being on top at the moment in total laps driven combining VCARB and RBR.

Very positive signs from this first half of the first test. Night and day to what RedBull had to go through with Renault in 2014.

[Peter Ian Staker]

Newey did say that at the start of 2025, about the ruleset being quite restrictive when he first looked at them, but he seemed to mention he saw some areas. Curious to see what solutions he has come up with.

The design boxes are quite restrictive.

Heard the same complaining about the restrictiveness of the regulation boxes before the 2022 rules and that didn't stop radically different ideas (porpoising and technical directives ended up doing that but that's a different story...)
Maybe the power and fuel restriction may have made teams chasing low drag over pure aero performance for the time being.

[dani5549]

https://postimg.cc/94wPwT9R

Very early days, but Hadjar is pushing it a little bit. No driver has touched those sector times so far and there's decent mileage too, with RBPT being on top at the moment in total laps driven combining VCARB and RBR.

Very positive signs from this first half of the first test. Night and day to what RedBull had to go through with Renault in 2014.

Isn't the Ferrari engine the one with the most mileage with Haas and Cadillac?

[Emag]

https://postimg.cc/94wPwT9R

Very early days, but Hadjar is pushing it a little bit. No driver has touched those sector times so far and there's decent mileage too, with RBPT being on top at the moment in total laps driven combining VCARB and RBR.

Very positive signs from this first half of the first test. Night and day to what RedBull had to go through with Renault in 2014.

Isn't the Ferrari engine the one with the most mileage with Haas and Cadillac?

Yep you're right, I forgot Cadillac has Ferrari engines

[langedweil]

https://postimg.cc/94wPwT9R

Very early days, but Hadjar is pushing it a little bit. No driver has touched those sector times so far and there's decent mileage too, with RBPT being on top at the moment in total laps driven combining VCARB and RBR.

Very positive signs from this first half of the first test. Night and day to what RedBull had to go through with Renault in 2014.

Isn't the Ferrari engine the one with the most mileage with Haas and Cadillac?

On that last chart that's correct .. merc 77, rbpt 77, fer 88. In testing times are rather
irrelevant, especially with these new PU's. It's about the miles, system checks, correlation .. the more miles the merrier

[dani5549]

So, with Lawson stop, that makes the cars with Mercedes,Audi, RBPT engine stop each one time.

[AR3-GP]

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday have rain in the forecast. That would be very disruptive. I don't think teams have that many intermediate tires even if they wanted to run.

[Emag]

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday have rain in the forecast. That would be very disruptive. I don't think teams have that many intermediate tires even if they wanted to run.

If you look at meteoblue's radar chart for rainclouds in Montmelo's forecast, Tuesday is the worst, because it covers the general area of the race track. If the model doesn't change by tomorrow, it looks like the entire afternoon session will be impacted.

Wednesday has some scattered rainclouds, but they're focused on the south-western part of the province. It's likely the track remains dry for the whole day.

Thursday, again, is not good. Rainclouds will cover a good chunk of Montmelo from 9 AM to 2:30 PM, but there's empty pockets in the general area where the circuit lies. If it does rain, it's unlikely the track stays dry though, so it will probably impact Thursday too.

Friday seems relatively "safe". If it rains, it will rain on the early morning hours and in the late afternoon.

So what do you know, it does pay dividents to get on track early. Monday might turn out to be 1 of the 3 days not impacted by weather. We know McLaren and Aston are a bit late, but it's a weird choice by Ferrari to not run the car today honestly.

[hollus]

So, with Lawson stop, that makes the cars with Mercedes,Audi, RBPT engine stop each one time.

Remember that some stops are not hardware failures. Typically, at least once per team, they let one car run to fully empty to check where “fully empty” is in real life. That’s always “stop on track and red flag”.

[ScottB]

Wonder if the FIA might be keen / encourage some wet running so they can see what the spray is like?