2026 Pre-Season Testing

[Rikhart]

No comment:

My lord, everything about this is meh. The silly 10+ seconds of revving the engine and the angry beehive sound it makes, the moronic flashing lights (I hope this will be deactivated on race starts!!!), how slow they are off the line.

[TeamKoolGreen]

Despite all the snarky remarks that the drivers made about the safety of the starts , Peter Windsor says the last thing we should be doing is making the starts more complicated. Speed differentials are the start really are dangerous and have killed and injured people.

But hey , the drivers laughed it off so it should be fine. It looks stupid , it sounds stupid and is more dangerous but should be fine.

[dialtone]

Despite all the snarky remarks that the drivers made about the safety of the starts , Peter Windsor says the last thing we should be doing is making the starts more complicated. Speed differentials are the start really are dangerous and have killed and injured people.

But hey , the drivers laughed it off so it should be fine.

Rightfully so.

This season is turning into both mercedes saying others are dumb for not getting to 18:1 and them also being dumbfounded for not realizing the turbo pressure buildup and needing help.

Get out of here, start from the pit lane and if your turbo is too big put a smaller one.

What is this amateur engineering nonsense?

[Rikhart]

Despite all the snarky remarks that the drivers made about the safety of the starts , Peter Windsor says the last thing we should be doing is making the starts more complicated. Speed differentials are the start really are dangerous and have killed and injured people.

But hey , the drivers laughed it off so it should be fine.

Not just at the start, some are talking of up to 60kph difference on straights, because of different battery stages and strategies, and that is a massive amount!

[Seanspeed]

Last year pole position was 1:29,8 (at last year of stable regs)
Today fastest time is 1:33,4 (with 2 more testdays to go and a lot of power to unlock).
It seems they wil not be so much slower after all…
What do you think?

Last year in testing the fastest time was 1:29.5.

Seems like they're gonna be just as slow as forecasted. And moreover, they're gonna LOOK slower, since higher straightline speeds aren't really visible.

[AR3-GP]

I watched the entire eight hours of testing attentively. I tried not to get distracted, so as not to lose sight of anything. I was amused by how, from time to time, some drivers couldn't overtake, but the one in front would boost and start pulling away. I'd never seen that before in F1. It was so obvious that it was hilarious.

I also noticed this but the goal would be to make the defender us his energy inefficiently for several laps in a row making them easy to overtake in the end.

[Seanspeed]

Despite all the snarky remarks that the drivers made about the safety of the starts , Peter Windsor says the last thing we should be doing is making the starts more complicated. Speed differentials are the start really are dangerous and have killed and injured people.

But hey , the drivers laughed it off so it should be fine.

Not just at the start, some are talking of up to 60kph difference on straights, because of different battery stages and strategies, and that is a massive amount!

Maybe we also need a rule where cars aren't allowed to be within 1 second of each other on the straight....

[hollus]

The fair comparison point is not Bahrain 2025, but Bahrain 2022. That was 1:30.558.
In pre-season testing in Bahrain it was 1:31.7.

It is OK to hate the cars, but let’s look for fair comparisons.

[chrisc90]

The redbull didn’t half take off.
Flew past the Ferrari and the alpine.

[AR3-GP]

The redbull didn’t half take off.
Flew past the Ferrari and the alpine.

I saw something similar on Red Bull's practice start last week.

[chrisc90]

The redbull didn’t half take off.
Flew past the Ferrari and the alpine.

I saw something similar on the practice start last week.

Promising for the red bull lot!

[AR3-GP]

The redbull didn’t half take off.
Flew past the Ferrari and the alpine.

I saw something similar on the practice start last week.

Promising for the red bull lot!

Hadjar came from P7 or something and was practically leading by T1 last week.

[Seanspeed]

The fair comparison point is not Bahrain 2025, but Bahrain 2022. That was 1:30.558.
In pre-season testing in Bahrain it was 1:31.7.

It is OK to hate the cars, but let’s look for fair comparisons.

A comparison with the last year of cars is entirely fair. Comparing with 2022 cars is simply a different comparison, not an inherently more 'fair' one.

Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. Like, I've always disliked the notion that you couldn't compare apples and oranges. lol You can compare anything, what matters more is what you're determining from the comparisons while understanding the context of the comparison. And using different points of comparisons is often very useful for gaining a more complete picture of things.

[eyelid]

Interesting start. 22 angry bees on line making noise.

[f1316]

Last year pole position was 1:29,8 (at last year of stable regs)
Today fastest time is 1:33,4 (with 2 more testdays to go and a lot of power to unlock).
It seems they wil not be so much slower after all…
What do you think?

Last year in testing the fastest time was 1:29.5.

Seems like they're gonna be just as slow as forecasted. And moreover, they're gonna LOOK slower, since higher straightline speeds aren't really visible.

I actually disagree - because they’re smaller, more nervous, less downforce, I think there’s a bit more of a sensation of speed. Look at the cars in, like, 2001 - they look super fast but are actually many seconds slower than even 2026.

I think if the 2022 testing best was a 31.7, we’ll probably end up only about a second off, which is fine imho.