The future of Formula 1 revved to life on Monday, as seven of the eleven teams hit the track for the first day of 2026 pre-season testing. The early standout? Red Bull, who logged remarkable mileage with their new, in-house engine developed in partnership with Ford.
Early mileage and New Designs Dominate First Day
Teams are evaluating performance and reliability as they prepare for the upcoming season.
Mercedes, Racing Bulls, Haas, Alpine, and the new Audi and Cadillac teams also participated in the testing session. Though, McLaren and ferrari opted to delay their track appearances. McLaren is prioritizing maximizing design time, while Ferrari conducted initial tests at their factory last week.
Aston Martin won’t have their new car ready until Thursday, and Williams is missing the test entirely due to delays in their design and production program. Despite the absence of official lap times, all teams encountered at least some technical hurdles as they began to understand their new machines.
Rival teams were notably impressed by Red Bull’s performance. “The Red Bull power unit has completed a lot of laps which,given that it’s their first engine they’ve built,means they’ve clearly done a good job,” remarked a competitor.
Before the on-track action began, both McLaren and Red Bull offered the first look at their 2026 challengers. McLaren, fresh off a drivers’ and constructors’ championship double in 2023 – their first as 1998 – showcased their car in a special one-off testing livery. Red Bull, meanwhile, strategically released studio shots of their car, carefully concealing key design elements.
Audi, entering Formula 1 by taking over the Sauber team, faced an early setback with a reliability issue that prevented Bortoleto from driving during the afternoon session. Team principal Jonathan Wheatley explained, “We had a technical issue, spotted it and decided to switch the car off. Plenty of testing this year and wanted to really understand the problems, see what the weather conditions are and decide whether we run tomorrow.”
Looking ahead, rain is forecast for Tuesday’s second day of testing, where teams are permitted to run on a maximum of three days. Drivers are already noting the differences in the new generation of cars.
“The cars are very different,” saeid Bortoleto. “I feel these are going to be slower but it’s very cool to have the power unit being 50% electric – you go out of the corner and you have so much speed being deployed and you can see how strong the engine is. You need to adapt but it’s still a racing car.”
Racing Bulls’ Lawson echoed the sentiment, stating, “[The car is] very different to drive and I haven’t got my head around it fully yet.We will keep learning. It feels like there is a lot more we can do as drivers to make a difference, possibly, but right now it’s very early days, very hard to know where we are for now just trying to optimise the car. [The power unit] feels good. But it’s very hard to tell – the main thing is reliability at the moment. We have done a good amount of laps today and the only issues we had today were safety precautions, not actual issues. But hard to know where we’re at compared to everyone else.”
