Despite being called the winter ‘break’, there is hardly any rest for teams during this period. If anything, the weeks between the season finale and pre-season testing are some of the most intense.
For aerodynamic and engine-focused personnel alike, the next few months are a race against time to prepare the first F1 2026 machines.
At surface level, pre-season testing will provide the first glimpses of next year’s challengers. Crucially, however, it is reliability – not outright performance – that will be most representative.
Reliability first, performance to come later
After this season’s conclusion, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur gave a series of declarations about F1 2026.
Some of his most interesting commentary focused on pre-season testing and the opening rounds of the year. According to Vasseur, the 2026 hierarchy will be impossible to predict until later in the season.
The Frenchman predicts most teams will focus on reliability in the early months of 2026.
This sentiment is clearly prevalent, with Cadillac, Audi and even Mercedes suggesting they will bring relatively basic packages in Barcelona testing – with more sophisticated iterations to arrive in the subsequent months.
For some teams, this will be out of necessity.
Due to limited wind tunnel hours and financial restrictions, some teams are at relatively early stages in their 2026 development.
Consequently, there will be some assembly lines still producing the first components to be used in pre-season testing. In some cases, only after the first few rounds will more serious upgrades be in the pipeline.
This is not to say all teams will be conservative in their rollout. Those who started early on their 2026 challengers, such as Williams, are already finalising their a-spec and b-spec cars.
Still, even in these cases, reliability will be the first order of business in testing. From hydraulics to suspension to engines, teams must ensure they have avoided any massive blunders when the cars first take to the track.
The near-faultless reliability F1 has become accustomed to will not be present in 2026. Much like at the start of the hybrid era in 2014, some outfits could be in serious trouble with their chassis and powertrains.
Because of this, it will be easier to spot the teams struggling in pre-season – whilst those in a stronger position will be more understated.
A game of cat and mouse to start F1 2026
As previously assessed on LWOS, teams began working towards 2026 at different times. This means some teams will be several steps ahead in terms of how they plan to evolve next year’s cars.
Others, meanwhile, will be trying to make up for lost time.
However, regardless of when teams made 2026 their development focus, there could be a dramatic range in how teams approached the new regulations.
In some cases, this could manifest itself in more obvious differences in visible parts of the car. In others, more disguisable areas – such as engine power – could be critical in separating teams.
Because of this, those who believe they have found something others have overlooked will avoid drawing attention to themselves with flashy lap-times.
This was Brawn’s approach when they first tested their title-winning 2009 car. Jenson Button recalls that after his first lap in Barcelona testing, he went six tenths faster than anyone else – much to the team’s surprise.
At that point, Brawn did not complete another low-fuel run. This was integral in keeping the team under the radar in pre-season, and meant rivals only began to emulate their game-changing double diffuser several months later.
Though an extreme example, this case study is relevant for the coming months. Teams that are struggling will have less to hide, and can work on testing their cars with slightly more freedom.
However, whichever engineering department has nailed the 2026 regulations will spend much of pre-season testing trying to avoid attention from elsewhere on the grid. After all, teams naturally protest to the FIA when someone else introduces an innovation they missed.
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Main photo: Steven Tee/LAT Images (McLaren Racing Media Centre)