F1 testing: Five takeaways from first week of all-new 2026 cars on track featuring Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Aston Martin
Long-time 2026 favourites Mercedes quickly catch the eye before Ferrari finish with a flourish; impressive reliable debut for Red Bull's first engine; watch every round of the 2026 Formula 1 season live on Sky Sports F1, starting with the Australian Grand Prix on March 6-8
Friday 30 January 2026 22:06, UK
After 2026 Formula 1 pre-season testing began with five days of track action in Barcelona, Sky Sports F1 pick out our major takeaways from the event.
The shakedown, arranged by the 11 teams themselves rather than Formula 1, was designed to provide them with the opportunity to give a first run to the all-new cars for 2026 after the introduction of new power unit and chassis regulations.
The media were not invited but daily highlights and interviews with drivers and key team personnel were provided, which along with a steady stream of information from the pit lane being shared with Sky Sports' sources, painted a reasonably clear picture of what was going on.
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Each team was permitted to run for three of the five days at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which saw the action spread out from Monday to Friday.
The teams now have some time to prepare for the two official testing events that have been organised by Formula 1, which take place from February 11-13 and 18-20 in Bahrain, before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix from March 6-8.
Long-running Mercedes deliver ominous showing
Even before chassis design on these cars began at the start of 2025, there had long been gossip in the paddock suggesting that Mercedes' prowess on the engine side of the new project would make them the team to beat in 2026.
There was already a warning shot fired when Mercedes held a filming day at Silverstone the week before the Barcelona event. While most other teams who had used a filming day had run their car for just a handful of laps, the W17 did 67 circuits of the British Grand Prix venue.
Unlike some of their rivals from the sharp end of the grid in recent years, Mercedes were ready to roll first thing on Monday morning in Barcelona, and picked up right where they left off at Silverstone.
George Russell and Kimi Antonelli would combine for 500 laps over their three days of running - the highest mileage recorded by any team.
They also appeared to have a decent amount of speed, topping the timesheet on their second and third track days, with Russell's time of 1:16.445 still ending up as the second fastest of the week despite the team not running on Friday when the track would have been at its best.
While insisting the lap times in Barcelona weren't important due to the running being largely exploratory and taking place in extremely cold conditions, Russell described the week as "very positive" and Antonelli said that the team would move onto Bahrain with "high confidence", which summed up a very strong showing.
Ferrari starting on the front foot
After a hugely disappointing 2025, Ferrari also made what appeared to be a very productive start to F1's new era.
Not running on Monday meant their first day on track was in the rain, but after that, it was solid from the Italian team. They piled up more laps than Mercedes on Thursday, and took their total count for the week to 440 laps by the end of Friday.
The test even finished with Lewis Hamilton posting the quickest time of the whole week, his 1:16.348 one tenth faster than Russell's benchmark from Thursday and two tenths up on Lando Norris' best from Friday in the McLaren.
Not that someone of Hamilton's experience was getting carried away by any of that.
Nonetheless, the seven-time world champion cut an upbeat figure in his post-session interviews and, considering he has never made much secret of his dislike of testing, even said he had found the week "really enjoyable".
Hamilton said on Thursday that the team were doing "better" than they had done in testing last year ahead of his debut campaign, when his preparations were severely hampered by a technical issue, and then at the end of Friday described it as having been a "solid first week" and one which allows them to "really build from here".
Also, and perhaps just as noteworthy for his own chances of enjoying a much-improved second campaign in red, Hamilton said he was already finding this new generation of car "more enjoyable" to drive than their ground-effect predecessors.
Ahead of a big year for the team and their two drivers, it appears so far, so good.
Red Bull surprise themselves with smooth start
While there had been lots of positive chatter around the new Mercedes power unit, it's fair to say that the first product of Red Bull's new engine division had been subject to contrastingly negative murmurs.
The Milton Keynes squad are manufacturing their own power unit for the first time in their history, and even their team principal Laurent Mekies admitted at the end of last season that it was a "crazy" pursuit.
Most expected there to be some significant teething issues with the power unit, which is being used this season by Red Bull and junior squad Racing Bulls, but that wasn't the case.
Isack Hadjar, the latest driver tasked with coping with the challenge of being Max Verstappen's team-mate, was able to complete 108 laps on Monday, which was backed up by Liam Lawson managing a further 88 laps for Racing Bulls.
On Monday evening, Hadjar said: "It was pretty productive, surprisingly. We managed to do a lot more laps than we expected."
There appeared to be no major hitches with the power unit for either team throughout the week, with the only drama for Red Bull being created by Hadjar crashing in the wet on Tuesday, which did raise questions about their decision to run on that day given the clear weather forecast for Thursday and Friday.
The time it took to fly out replacement parts from Milton Keynes meant they couldn't run again until Friday, but Verstappen was able to make full use of the final day as he racked up 118 laps with no apparent hitch.
First Newey-designed Aston Martin catches the eye
We had to wait for most of the week to see the first Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin, but when it finally appeared on Thursday evening, it was worth the wait.
The team had announced on Monday that they would be on track by Thursday at the earliest, meaning they were unable to use their full three days of running.
That was reportedly a result of Newey, who took over as team principal at the end of last season, pushing to keep the design window open as late as possible.
The AMR26 immediately stood out from the other cars in the pit lane.
Sky Sports F1's Ted Kravitz observed: "The nosecone looks wider and fatter than the Mercedes, the McLaren and the Red Bull. The sidepod looks a bit bigger than the Red Bull too. It has got a bit of rake in it, which is a Newey trademark."
Such is Newey's track record of excellence, there is a high chance he will have produced a good car, but whether all the elements are in place for Aston Martin to be successful remains to be seen.
They are the only team having their engine manufactured by Honda, who were intending to drop out of the sport before making a U-turn, which could have left them behind some of their rivals in power unit production.
Teething issues for new squads
The whole point of this event was to allow teams to overcome teething issues before official televised testing follows in Bahrain next month, therefore it made total sense that it wasn't all plain sailing.
Excluding Williams, who didn't even make it to the event after failing to have their car ready, and late-arriving Aston Martin, the teams who appeared to experience the most issues were unsurprisingly F1's new teams.
Completely new outfit Cadillac appeared to encounter several problems which limited them to completing a total of 164 laps, the least of the teams who ran for three days.
Audi, who have taken over what was formerly the Sauber team and become a fully fledged works outfit, also ran into some issues, particularly earlier in the week.
While these teams might not have quite hit the ground running, the idea is that after six more days of testing in Bahrain, they will be able to deliver a respectable showing when it comes to the first round of the season in Melbourne.
Their increased mileage throughout the week suggested that they are at least on the right path.
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