2026 Pre-Season Testing

[F1ern]

Must be C4

[nitrotech]

It is C4. Irrelevant to this track.

[PatrikH27]

Russel‘s lap on the prototypes i couldn‘t believe how it ended up on a low 33. It almost didn‘t even look like a push lap.

If you compare all cars not by ultimate lap time but take like a low 33 from all of them and put them side by side, its very clear the Mercedes does it a lot easier. No steering corrections at all. The Ferrari, seemlingy second best imo is already having to do micro corrections everywhere. The car is already more fragile and on the edge on those sort of laptimes.

Just by looking how the cars react i think its very clear Merc is holding back the most still

[Paa]

Max is half a second down in sector 2, relative to Leclerc on their hot laps! Not once, but multiple times on same tyres

Red Bull has been losing a lot in S2 all week, even last week, this is not new.

[Badger]

Ferrari hype train incoming! Maybe this is the year. Now just got to get it done.

[Seanspeed]

NOR seemingly at the start of a race sim.

And it's very fast, though track conditions are basically perfect right now.

[Emag]

Unless McLaren are heavily sandbagging, I think they’re at least 2 tenths down on Ferrari at the moment. Mercedes is hard to read, they’ve been rather cryptic in their runs.

I stand to my first prediction regarding the pecking order.

It’s Mercedes/Ferrari (and I would bet for Ferrari in Melbourne at the moment), then McLaren/RedBull.

The gaps in Australia could give us a sense of how realistic a 4-team fight would be later in the season.

[SoulPancake13]

NOR seemingly at the start of a race sim.

And it's very fast, though track conditions are basically perfect right now.

My guess is that he is simming a stint 2 and stint 3. Otherwise McLaren is a second ahead of everyone right now.

[McFAN]

NOR seemingly at the start of a race sim.

And it's very fast, though track conditions are basically perfect right now.

Yeah it's looking solid,
Shame there isn't time to complete the full distance.

[AR3-GP]

NOR seemingly at the start of a race sim.

And it's very fast, though track conditions are basically perfect right now.

Leclerc was doing these times in the day session with less deg.

[FittingMechanics]

Unless McLaren are heavily sandbagging, I think they’re at least 2 tenths down on Ferrari at the moment. Mercedes is hard to read, they’ve been rather cryptic in their runs.

I stand to my first prediction regarding the pecking order.

It’s Mercedes/Ferrari (and I would bet for Ferrari in Melbourne at the moment), then McLaren/RedBull.

The gaps in Australia could give us a sense of how realistic a 4-team fight would be later in the season.

How do you reach this conclusion? Norris had very little running today, he immediately entered into a qualy sim, did 3 runs and ended up 2 tenths slower than Leclerc on a lap where he had multiple oversteer moments in S1.

Leclerc on other hand had the whole day, did more C3 runs in the evening and had many more C3s than Norris.

Honestly, to me Norris being 2 tenths off at the same time on same tire on the day like he had today is very positive sign for McLaren.

At least in qualifying trim. Race sims I couldn't really follow as I haven't been at home, but it was a McLaren strength last year.

[Seanspeed]

NOR seemingly at the start of a race sim.

And it's very fast, though track conditions are basically perfect right now.

Leclerc was doing these times in the day session with less deg.

Not at the same point of their race sims. This is quite a bit faster.

As SoulPancake says, they could have started from the second stint knowing they didn't have time for a full race sim, though.

[Emag]

NOR seemingly at the start of a race sim.

And it's very fast, though track conditions are basically perfect right now.

Leclerc was doing these times in the day session with less deg.

Outliers removed this is quite a bit faster actually, but it's hard to quantify how much the hotter temps affect laptime here. If it's up to a second, then McLaren are half a second behind.

[FrukostScones]

Turbo Time!

[Emag]

It seems like McLaren has settled the start problem.