2026 Pre-Season Testing

[GrizzleBoy]

The stronger electrical output is probably actually a big negative to cars that don't have sufficient chassis compliance or driveable deployment at lower revs.

It's a double whammy in a place like Bahrain.

Yep, going sideways every time you try to go forwards is definitely a bad thing

Red Bull are historically Chassis gurus so its no surprise The RB22 is so stable, although the Ford engine being so driveable so early is a big win.

Then again, i dont know if theyve been pushing the hardest every day compared to others.

[SoulPancake13]

Summary of Martin Villari's verdict:
Ferrari: Quick one lap, but the car is terrible at traction and is probably cooking its rear tires.

McLaren: Looked perfect on day 1 but has been experiencing more problems as the test has progressed. They are experiencing understeer in turn 11 and rear instability in turns 5-7.

Red Bull: Max is not happy with the type of racing being required, but the car is definitely the best one for energy and stability. The only car that is not trying to rotate or slide off the track every time the driver touches the throttle.

No offense, but the guy has no clue what he's on about. Ferrari's race sims have looked pretty strong over the laps we had data on.

[LM10]

Summary of Martin Villari's verdict:
Ferrari: Quick one lap, but the car is terrible at traction and is probably cooking its rear tires.

McLaren: Looked perfect on day 1 but has been experiencing more problems as the test has progressed. They are experiencing understeer in turn 11 and rear instability in turns 5-7.

Red Bull: Max is not happy with the type of racing being required, but the car is definitely the best one for energy and stability. The only car that is not trying to rotate or slide off the track every time the driver touches the throttle.

Up until the ground effect era Ferrari has had exceptional traction and mechanical grip. Now we’re back to non-ground-effect I can’t imagine them being “terrible” with traction. Even though they’ve switched to Pushrods at the rear.

[Sieper]

Well...actually I don't know ...I think mercedes have to play this very carefully. We are in complete different times with respect to 2014...a big social and media attention now is on them: If they downplay too much now their real potential and then they come out with a beast the media/social pressure towards a cheating scheme could rise to a very worrying level. The social beast is always hungry.

So they won’t unleash a beast. Just that 2 tenths faster and adjust. If and when needed.

Again, you are talking in 2026 with a 2014 logic. A beast would be simply a car that wins. you have seen that the other engine builders, Audi first, are not accepting to be fooled. Plus, Mercedes cannot favor one driver: Russel cannot be slowed down for obvious reasons and Toto will not accept to slow down his pupil Kimi. So, If they have a real winning car they will win 1-2.

Again? We have not spoken. Just unleashing 20 of the Max 50 hp extra (or whatever the advantage is) will not favor one of two drivers, they will Ofcourse both get the same power. Just enough to not get nerved. They might even “misjudge” here or there. Accidently or not. If they truly have a compression ratio that much higher then it likely will be a 2014 style advantage. I hope not.

[Jambier]

Regarding engine, FIA will anyway test max power, I don't think they can cheat and hide.
Then ADUO will kick in

[f1isgood]

Looking at the telemetry it's clear McLaren are running a lower engine mode. I only compared them with Mercedes as same engine (PIA v ANT second stint). They lose all their time towards the end of the straights and Piastri's car is not hitting 300 kmph at all. Similar trend when compared to Ferrari as well although there the comparison is more meaningless since I don't know what they are doing with deployment etc.

It remains to be seen how much power Mercedes have left. I think McLaren will be Mercedes' biggest pain point this year.

[AR3-GP]

Did Russell leak the end date for these PU regs?

For our driving style, it has to be a little different, but we're on the fourth day of this new regulation that's going to run for three years, so I don't think it's worth talking about it so soon, in my view.

[organic]

Did Russell leak the end date for these PU regs?

For our driving style, it has to be a little different, but we're on the fourth day of this new regulation that's going to run for three years, so I don't think it's worth talking about it so soon, in my view.

whoops

[Seanspeed]

Indeed. I think Max’s day 1 race sim is still the fastest over this test. Imho it’s very close between the top 4. Gun to head I think Mclaren have a small advantage and they haven’t shown their hand yet. They’ve restricted running to race sims and harder compounds while racking up a massive amount of laps.

I dont think we have any indication Max did a race sim on Day 1. If he did, do you have the full times and compounds used?

The race had a look at that and it almost certainly looked like a race sim. 3 compounds with constantly declining lap times.

Were they done immediately in a row, and did it all add up to 57 laps? If you only do 40 laps total over three stints, nobody knows whether you started at full fuel or whether you started with 17 laps of fuel absent already. Of course it's different if there's a red flag or problem or something, but you cant just pick three stints and combine them together and say it was a race sim. Race sims are also typically race preparation, so it's more than just about laptimes, the team is generally running a whole raceday program(including a light quali simulation beforehand often enough). So they are very much something different than just 'some longer runs'.

Anyways, what were the times?

[Rikhart]

Did Russell leak the end date for these PU regs?

For our driving style, it has to be a little different, but we're on the fourth day of this new regulation that's going to run for three years, so I don't think it's worth talking about it so soon, in my view.

3 years of this crap? Kill me now.

[TeamKoolGreen]

The energy starvation will make it almost impossible for even faster cars to overtake. There's just too much energy involved in a pass.

Charles says that overtaking is now much more tricky than before

"we've tried it, and i can confirm what my colleagues have said. currently, i find it extremely difficult to even attempt an overtaking move.

[TeamKoolGreen]

If George let that number out and it is really 3 years , Id say that is a positive sign. That is as short as we can ask for. And maybe there will a revision next year to make it at least bearable. Increased fuel flow or something

[AR3-GP]

The energy starvation will make it almost impossible for even faster cars to overtake. There's just too much energy involved in a pass.

Charles says that overtaking is now much more tricky than before

"we've tried it, and i can confirm what my colleagues have said. currently, i find it extremely difficult to even attempt an overtaking move.

Hadjar said if you use overtake mode, you pay for 5 laps afterwords. They don't have enough energy to do a single lap at the nominal power level, nevermind the overtake mode...What did Fia think was going to happen? That the electrical energy for the overtake mode would beam from the sky?

The overtake mode is window dressing. It's actually a "dump your energy in the most sub-optimal way" mode. It's the worst way to deploy energy. You are just punishing yourself when you use it.

[Emag]

It's basically what I was thinking about. You click overtake, you're a sitting duck the next straight (or longer). It's just unusable really. This is going to be like the pre DRS era.

[mzso]

Did Russell leak the end date for these PU regs?

For our driving style, it has to be a little different, but we're on the fourth day of this new regulation that's going to run for three years, so I don't think it's worth talking about it so soon, in my view.

Maybe it's just his wishes showing.

Hadjar said if you use overtake mode, you pay for 5 laps afterwords. They don't have enough energy to do a single lap at the nominal power level, nevermind the overtake mode...What did Fia think was going to happen? That the electrical energy for the overtake mode would beam from the sky?

The overtake mode is window dressing. It's actually a "dump your energy in the most sub-optimal way" mode. It's the worst way to deploy energy. You are just punishing yourself when you use it.

Maybe it will be an exclusive feature for Monaco and Hungary. Where you just get corner after corner.