For all the focus on Mercedes this winter, several familiar names made an impression on day 1 of Bahrain testing. Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari all accumulated over 100 laps across today’s sessions, maintaining the impressive levels of durability shown from the Barcelona Shakedown.
Out of these established teams, however, Red Bull’s reliability is easily the most notable development.
Before pre-season testing began, there was an expectation that Red Bull’s first ever power unit could be susceptible to serious limitations. However, this assumption does not appear to be materialising on track.
According to Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, Red Bull are setting the standard and enjoying huge performance advantages from their engine in these earliest of stages in 2026.
Wolff points to Red Bull as early reference
At Red Bull’s season launch, Laurent Mekies insisted his team would need time to get up to speed. Mekies explained that the first months of the season would involve sleepless nights and significant corrections.
The Frenchman was specifically referencing Red Bull’s powertrains department, which debuts its first engine this season. On paper, these warnings were perfectly reasonable in the context of this season.
Constructing a power unit department from scratch is an immense challenge, even for a Championship-winning team. Unlike more established manufacturers, the Milton Keynes outfit have been building their engine facilities and workforce from the ground up.
This is why Red Bull, at least until recently, were seen as less likely to launch a title bid than in previous years. Mercedes, and by extension their customer teams, were regarded as being the most well-positioned for these new regulations.
Of course, pre-season narratives can change quickly when the cars go on track.
From Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff’s perspective, the RB22 is currently the best package. The Austrian even emphasised their new power unit as a key difference-maker:
“I was hoping they would be worse than they are,” he told Sky Sports about Red Bull. “They have done a very good job.
“The car, the power unit, are the benchmark at the moment I would say. Then obviously you have Max in the car, the combination is strong.
“Look at their energy deployment today. They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else. We are speaking a second per lap, over consecutive laps.
“On a single lap, we’ve seen it before. But now we have seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same kind of straight line deployment.
“I would say that as per today, on the first official day of testing, which is always the caveat of that, they’ve set the benchmark.”
Off-track politics intensify
There is a very extensive backdrop to Toto Wolff’s comments. Ordinarily, his declarations could be interpreted as standard for any team principal wanting to manage expectations and minimise pressure on their squad.
With that said, this has not been an ordinary winter break. The Mercedes engine has been at the very centre of a highly disputed saga amongst all the engine manufacturers.
As it stands, the FIA is set to take action to address the complaints made about the German team’s compression ratio solution. Any other outcome is unlikely, given that four out of five engine suppliers are in unison on this issue.
Although the Mercedes power unit was heavily discussed even before 2026, the W17’s near flawless reliability in the Barcelona Shakedown is understood to have intensified calls from rivals for a clampdown on their controversial compression ratio idea.
In this sense, it is in Toto Wolff’s interest – more so than usual – to downplay suggestions his team are leading the pack.
Still, it would be a mistake to completely disregard the sincerity of these comments. Ultimately, Red Bull’s RB22 is operating at a level of reliability that nobody anticipated heading into this year.
Even their second team, VCARB, has been vocal in praising the reliability of the Austrian power unit. As a result, there will be a heightened interest in how Max Verstappen’s team perform over the next five days of Bahrain testing.
Main photo: Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images (Red Bull Content Pool)