Last Updated on January 26 2026, 9:31 pm

With the sun low in the sky and single digit ambient temperatures, the 2026 Formula One cars taking part in the first day of the pre-season testing rolled out of their garages and into the crisp winter air. Those present at the green flag were Red Bull Racing, Audi, The Racing Bulls and Alpine while Mercedes and Cadillac would join the fray later in the first hour.

Despite various reports to the contrary, there will be no evening highlights of this weeks 5 days of testing for the eagerly awaiting fans, but limited coverage will be available when the teams head off to Bahrain for the second and third tests of the year.

One thing immediately obvious is that gone are the full wheel disc style covers as the teams sent their cars out with partial discs or no discs covering the rim and braking systems at all.

 

 

 

More mini sidepod designs

Next to catch the attention of the fans were the various interpretations of the side pods and their associated air inlets. Red Bull’s is incredibly small and it appears they have compensated by introducing a larger air intake box above the drivers head.

This design will reduce drag significantly and appears to give the Milton Keynes based team an early advantage in the aerodynamics department. Mercedes famously developed the zero-pod car in 2022 which at its launch was praised for its aerodynamic efficiency, but proved to be a bouncing nightmare given the airflow was not optimised for the ground effect underfloor.

The bottom line was that Mercedes were not able to control the airflow to the diffuser as well as the others coupled with a bigger problem which was no control of the tyre wake – which spilled more air towards the rear diffuser – costing downforce.

So whilst the Mercedes zero-pod design reduced drag around the side of the car, it lacked the ability to control the air sufficiently losing downforce and ironically increasing the drag the zero-pods sought to shed. These considerations no longer exist, given the return to flat floors without the Venturi channels. 

 

 

 

Aline & Audi front wing endplate extra wings

Audi’s side pods are set extremely low, well below the rim of the cockpit and this leads to the absence of the waterslide shape behind the side pod which became almost standard during the last set of regulations.

All the team’s appear to be taking in less air for cooling purposes which may be to do with the reduction in output from the internal combustion engine to around 500bhp. Of course the triple sized batteries will need extra cooling but this is traditionally delivered by a water based for oil based solution – not merely from airflow.

Alpine and Cadillac appear to be trialing extra small winglets on top of the front wing endplates which appears some kind of attempt to manage the airflow around the outside of the tyres. The FIA may not like this interpretation given much of the new front end of the cars have been specified to reduced “outwash” which forces the air around the front tyre and creates dirty air for the car following behind.

Amongst there various F1 fans online communities, the Cadillac livery drew a lot of attention. “The Cadillac looks really good,” posted one fan from Belgium, yet the texture of the livery and lack of sponsors suggest this is a camouflage style testing livery only. Cadillac say they will reveal their racing livery and full set of sponsors at the Super Bowl at the Levi’s stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area on Sunday February 8th.

 

 

 

Alpine and Audi suffer stops on track

The Cadillac yet to be given a name chassis does look more basic in terms of its aero complexity than the others. Yet with five weeks of pre-season testing and development time, the cars will almost certainly look significantly different when they roll out for free practice one in Melbourne come March.

Despite the test being declared private by the FIA, inevitably people have flocked to the Barcelona track to get a first glimpse of the new era of Formula One. Vantage points around the circuit have resulted in a number of images of the cars emerging on social media, one of which showed Gabriel Bortoleto’s Audi R26 stationary on track.

Audi later confirmed they had indeed suffered a “technical issue.” The circuit owners stand they have dispatched security teams to move people on from these hotspots and that the perimeter roads providing access to the venue have been closed.

Aston Martin have declared today, they will miss the first two days in Barcelona opting to run their three day allowance on the final days of the test. TJ13 reported last week there were concerns in Silverstone as to whether Honda would be ready to deliver their powertrains in time for this weeks running in Barcelona.

 

 

 

Red Bull’s Hadjar quickest

Franco Colapinto in his Alpine was also to suffer a stoppage on track during the first hour, but he was able to get going again under his own steam after a few minutes stationary. This is not a official test, claims the FIA, and so no timing has been setup to measure the lap times of the cars.

However, unofficially it was Isack Hadjar who set the best time in the morning session as he steps into the RB22 for the first time with Max Verstappen eating in the wings. With the times back and to between the drivers this morning, it was Isack hadjar who finally set the quickest time.

Hadjar in his all new Red Bull car set a 1:20.494, over a second and a half up on Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli best, before improving that to a 1:20.300. The teams then broke for lunch and will take to the track again in the afternoon.

 

 

 

Ferrari insider reveals “calm” in Maranello over Mercedes engine trickery

Many classrooms were half empty in the northern Italian towns of Sassuolo, Moderna and Regia-Emilia on Friday and it was not due to the usual inter-school sporting competitions. Young and old alike gathered outside Ferrari’s own race track in Fiorano, jostling for position on banks and road bridges which surround the circuit.

Such is the passion of the tifosi. No other team has seen this kind of interest at the shake down days for their 2026 F1 challengers. Such is the emotion evoked by the top flight racing cars in red livery, that veteran Italian F1 journalist Leo Turini reports the eyes of the Mayor of Maranello were misty as once again the hopes of the tifosi are raised ahead of the coming season.

“So we always come back here [Fiorano]: will this Ferrari have a soul? Or will it be added to the depressing catalog of unhappy, unsuccessful, worse developed projects?” He rhetorically questions…. READ MORE