2026 Pre-Season Testing

[HungarianRacer]

We know the teams fastest lap times… we have no idea how fast they were going on the other laps

Not entirely true though, a few Spanish blokes out on field provided frequent updates on in-stint laptimes as well. According to Ekaitz Gil (is this his legal name? lol), Mercedes was consistently lapping faster than everyone else even comparing similar stint lenghts.

So the lap times were…?

What are you expecting of me, relate the hundreds of laps of all teams based on the day and time of the session? lol

Apparently, George was running in the 1:20's "on-and-on" on the first day already, had short stints in the 1:17 - 1:18's today.... Meanwhile, nobody else even dipped under the 1:18's so far....

[edu2703]

Not entirely true though, a few Spanish blokes out on field provided frequent updates on in-stint laptimes as well. According to Ekaitz Gil (is this his legal name? lol), Mercedes was consistently lapping faster than everyone else even comparing similar stint lenghts.

So the lap times were…?

What are you expecting of me, relate the hundreds of laps of all teams based on the day and time of the session? lol

Apparently, George was running in the 1:20's "on-and-on" on the first day already, had short stints in the 1:17 - 1:18's today.... Meanwhile, nobody else even dipped under the 1:18's so far....

Which doesn't mean anything at all. Everybody could be sandbagging. Even Mercedes.

It's impossible to draw any conclusions about the performance of each car based on these lap times, as if we knew that all the teams are doing the same testing program.

If Mercedes is the only team going below 1:18, the easiest and most likely explanation is that they are simply pushing harder than the other teams on testing. This is far, very far from being an early indication they have the best car.

[FittingMechanics]

Russell said yesterday that they will work on quali runs today. I'm sure they did their fair share of them (those 17s and 16s).

I think Mercedes can be happy in that they can be pretty confident that they will be reliable. That is not a bad spot to be after 3 of 9 days of testing.

[f1316]

Ferrari did the most laps today - was that “ominous” in any way? Seriously, I would ban words like ominous and dominant and “laying down a marker” from all testing coverage if I could - sure, you can definitely tell Mercedes are having a smooth test and completing everything the want to, so ultimately they’ll be very happy, but the hyperbole/confirmation bias is ridiculous.

Not the "most" laps per se but the amount of confidence they have to push the engine further. Now very likely the other teams had their own run plan and didn't want to focus on something similar to Mercedes which to me is fair, because the track conditions were extremely unrepresenative and not ideal for testing. It doesn't matter if you don't like the words to describe certain things we see, Mercedes "look" impressive and that's all.

In Bahrain as I said, will give us the full story about the W17 and the pecking order. It's still very early days. Though if anyone has a dreaded opinion already, I wouldn't blame them.

It’s also Mercedes’ 3rd day vs 2nd day for their biggest rivals - the others may choose to use their final day to push things a little more, so let’s at least wait and see if that happens before using words like “ominous”. Note : this is mainly directed at publications like The Race that use this kind of language, not necessarily users of this forum

[gearboxtrouble]

If mid 1:16s are assumed to be flat out by Mercedes today then I suspect the pole time this year will be around 3s faster on much warmer track temperatures, softer tires (C3 is unlikely to be the soft come race weekend) and car evolution. Thats ~2s slower than the 2025 cars in qualifying which is in the ballpark for what most people expected. Race pace would obviously be much slower on energy management.

[johnny vee]

If mid 1:16s are assumed to be flat out by Mercedes today then I suspect the pole time this year will be around 3s faster on much warmer track temperatures, softer tires (C3 is unlikely to be the soft come race weekend) and car evolution. Thats ~2s slower than the 2025 cars in qualifying which is in the ballpark for what most people expected. Race pace would obviously be much slower on energy management.

Very good post. Thank you.
I tend to agree. I don't know if you watch Matt and Tommy on youtube but they did an interesting video early 2025 or 2024 in which they said that the general laptimes of the cars is not really a great measure. IE, we can't really notice the difference of speed without the timing charts. They also bring up 1988 Suzuka, the cars looked great, looked fast but they were 4 - 6s slower than cars of today. If the cars are 2 seconds slower but the racing is great then it could be a great year.

[FW17]

They also bring up 1988 Suzuka, the cars looked great, looked fast but they were 4 - 6s slower than cars of today. If the cars are 2 seconds slower but the racing is great then it could be a great year.

1988 cars were 14 seconds slower than 2024 cars

[Fred]

Not entirely true though, a few Spanish blokes out on field provided frequent updates on in-stint laptimes as well. According to Ekaitz Gil (is this his legal name? lol), Mercedes was consistently lapping faster than everyone else even comparing similar stint lenghts.

So the lap times were…?

What are you expecting of me, relate the hundreds of laps of all teams based on the day and time of the session? lol

Apparently, George was running in the 1:20's "on-and-on" on the first day already, had short stints in the 1:17 - 1:18's today.... Meanwhile, nobody else even dipped under the 1:18's so far....

Sounds impressive until you consider that pole last year was a 1:11 and these cars are expected to be quicker and are apparently easier to drive, so the drivers will be able to extract more pace. None of these cars are pushing remotely close to the limit, and that’s probably a fairly meaningless number.

[Badger]

So the lap times were…?

What are you expecting of me, relate the hundreds of laps of all teams based on the day and time of the session? lol

Apparently, George was running in the 1:20's "on-and-on" on the first day already, had short stints in the 1:17 - 1:18's today.... Meanwhile, nobody else even dipped under the 1:18's so far....

Sounds impressive until you consider that pole last year was a 1:11 and these cars are expected to be quicker and are apparently easier to drive, so the drivers will be able to extract more pace. None of these cars are pushing remotely close to the limit, and that’s probably a fairly meaningless number.

No one is expecting these cars to be faster.

[dialtone]

If mid 1:16s are assumed to be flat out by Mercedes today then I suspect the pole time this year will be around 3s faster on much warmer track temperatures, softer tires (C3 is unlikely to be the soft come race weekend) and car evolution. Thats ~2s slower than the 2025 cars in qualifying which is in the ballpark for what most people expected. Race pace would obviously be much slower on energy management.

I don't think this is accurate. Low temperature favor the engine quite dramatically, they also improve downforce as the air is denser at lower temperature.

An easy example is in 2022 Barcelona testing was in February, race in May, 1:19.1 from Merc best time of the test, 1:18.7 LEC pole time in May, Mercs themselves 1:19.39.
Last year Bahrein Feb test 1:29.5, Piastri pole in April at 1:29.8.

C3 was the soft tire the past few years, not sure why it would be different this year.

Mostly we know they should be about 2s slower.

[GrizzleBoy]

So the lap times were…?

What are you expecting of me, relate the hundreds of laps of all teams based on the day and time of the session? lol

Apparently, George was running in the 1:20's "on-and-on" on the first day already, had short stints in the 1:17 - 1:18's today.... Meanwhile, nobody else even dipped under the 1:18's so far....

Sounds impressive until you consider that pole last year was a 1:11 and these cars are expected to be quicker and are apparently easier to drive, so the drivers will be able to extract more pace. None of these cars are pushing remotely close to the limit, and that’s probably a fairly meaningless number.

Higher electrical energy output which im guessing will create higher instant torque, with less weight for a higher power to weight ratio, with less downforce, will be easier for them to drive?

It may be easier to "drive" in the sense that the cars suspension geometry and aero will allow wider setup windows beyond "slammed to the ground" and "slightly less slammed to the ground to stop porpoising".

Also should allow drivers with a deft right foot to rotate the car by controlling the rear axle, especially in slower corners where the rear of the car raises up, the diffuser is no longer sucking the car to the ground and braking control (trail braking) can once again be used to control the balance of the car in a more substantial way through the range of a corner.
As opposed to the cars of 2022 to 2025 where every setup and driver input into the car had to be designed to NOT affect the balance of the car to keep it in its narrow "aero" window.

So not easier to drive imo, but hopefully with more tools to manipulate the car if you have the skills to do so.

I personally cant wait to see if we once again have cars that look like a driver is able to push them around to make it do what they want, vs drivers being limited to having to be careful not to move the car out of its default setting.

[bluechris]

What are you expecting of me, relate the hundreds of laps of all teams based on the day and time of the session? lol

Apparently, George was running in the 1:20's "on-and-on" on the first day already, had short stints in the 1:17 - 1:18's today.... Meanwhile, nobody else even dipped under the 1:18's so far....

Sounds impressive until you consider that pole last year was a 1:11 and these cars are expected to be quicker and are apparently easier to drive, so the drivers will be able to extract more pace. None of these cars are pushing remotely close to the limit, and that’s probably a fairly meaningless number.

Higher electrical energy output which im guessing will create higher instant torque, with less weight for a higher power to weight ratio, with less downforce, will be easier for them to drive?

It may be easier to "drive" in the sense that the cars suspension geometry and aero will allow wider setup windows beyond "slammed to the ground" and "slightly less slammed to the ground to stop porpoising".

Also should allow drivers with a deft right foot to rotate the car by controlling the rear axle, especially in slower corners where the rear of the car raises up, the diffuser is no longer sucking the car to the ground and braking control (trail braking) can once again be used to control the balance of the car in a more substantial way through the range of a corner.
As opposed to the cars of 2022 to 2025 where every setup and driver input into the car had to be designed to NOT affect the balance of the car to keep it in its narrow "aero" window.

So not easier to drive imo, but hopefully with more tools to manipulate the car if you have the skills to do so.

I personally cant wait to see if we once again have cars that look like a driver is able to push them around to make it do what they want, vs drivers being limited to having to be careful not to move the car out of its default setting.

It will be easier for the true masters to drive and we all know who are they so this parameter if indeed is true (because they will tune that with the software eventually to a good level), is great imo.

[Waz]

https://preview.redd.it/number-of-laps- ... 144df4057a

Why does the bottom table ignore Haas and Cadillac with Ferrari engines?

[Martin Keene]

https://preview.redd.it/number-of-laps- ... 144df4057a

I am not a Red Bull fan, I think that might be more to do with the guy who ran the team and the culture that seemed to flow through it as a result, but regardless of that. That is a mighty impressive display of reliability from a clean sheet engine manufacturer.

The question of power needs to be answered,, but I bet they are all very happy with that as a first test.

[Badger]

If mid 1:16s are assumed to be flat out by Mercedes today then I suspect the pole time this year will be around 3s faster on much warmer track temperatures, softer tires (C3 is unlikely to be the soft come race weekend) and car evolution. Thats ~2s slower than the 2025 cars in qualifying which is in the ballpark for what most people expected. Race pace would obviously be much slower on energy management.

Based on what precedent? The difference between pole and testing last time we were in Barcelona in 2022 and 2020 was negligible. The cold track helps if anything. Pole this year is going to be in the 1:15 range would be my guess.