F1’s 2026 season inches closer this week as teams descend on Bahrain International Circuit for the first official pre-season test. Starting Wednesday and running through Friday, all 11 teams will get their first extended look at machinery built to completely new regulations — and the rest of us will finally get some answers.
Or at least we hope.
F1 Testing in 2026: What We Should Learn
The Barcelona shakedown last month gave teams a chance to shake out the gremlins and make sure their cars actually worked. Bahrain is where things get real. Six days of testing split across two three-day sessions means roughly 48 hours of track time before the Australian Grand Prix on March 6-8. That’s not much when you consider these cars share exactly zero parts with last year’s machines.
So what should you watch for when coverage begins? Start with who’s actually completing laps. Reliability will tell you more in February than lap times ever could. The teams logging consistent mileage are the ones gathering data. The teams watching their cars sit in the garage are the ones scrambling.
McLaren has already said what you see in Bahrain will largely be what you see in Melbourne. Ferrari took a different approach, bringing a “spec-A” car to Barcelona with plans to add upgrades in the desert. Others will fall somewhere in between. Pay attention to which teams show up with visibly different aero packages or bodywork. That’ll tell you who’s still experimenting and who’s confident they’ve found something.
Then there’s the question everyone wants answered but nobody can answer yet: Who’s fastest?
Good luck with that one.
Lots to Watch with Massive F1 Changes for 2026
Pre-season testing has always been a guessing game, but 2026 might be the trickiest to read in years. Fuel loads alone can swing lap times by three-tenths of a second per 22 lbs. Add in varying programs, different tire compounds, and teams running completely different testing plans, and the time sheets become essentially meaningless. Someone will top the charts. The internet will lose its mind. And we’ll all find out in Australia whether any of it mattered.
What matters more is how drivers adapt to the new tools at their disposal. This year’s cars come with active aerodynamics, deployable front and rear wing flaps, and three power modes: Boost, Overtake, and Recharge. Drivers have said they expect everything to feel different — especially race starts, which multiple world champions have already flagged as trickier than before.
Watch for how many practice starts teams run. If you see a driver lining up at the pit exit over and over, that’s not boredom — that’s preparation for a launch system nobody’s quite figured out yet.
The other wrinkle? Only one car per team. That means drivers split the track time, roughly 12 hours each per test. Some teams will give one driver a full day then split the third. Others will alternate sessions daily. Either way, expect lunch breaks to get busy as mechanics swap seat settings and make setup changes to minimize lost time.
How to Watch F1 Testing in 2026
Although F1 coverage on television has moved to Apple TV starting with the 2026 season, it will not broadcast the testing. Coverage starts with the final hour of each day broadcast live during the first test, followed by analysis shows. Only the final hour will be streamed live across F1’s broadcast partners, such as Sky Sports F1 in the UK. Sky will be broadcasting the action on Feb. 11, 12, and 13 from 3 p.m. until 4.10 p.m.
Race fans can track the times throughout the three days on F1’s website. The second test ramps up with full live coverage across all three days. All of F1’s digital channels are the best way to keep track.
By the time testing wraps on Feb. 20, teams will have less than two weeks before cars ship to Australia. Whatever they learn in Bahrain — about reliability, performance, tire wear, or how their competitors stack up — will inform the opening races of what might be the most unpredictable season in recent memory.
Will Bahrain give us a clear picture of the pecking order? Probably not. But it’ll give us enough to start asking the right questions. And in a year where nobody really knows what they’re doing yet, that’s about all we can ask for.
Cadillac Shows Off F1 Colors in Super Bowl Ad Spot
Cadillac used the Super Bowl to introduce its Formula 1 livery to the world Sunday, airing a commercial during the NFL’s championship game that revealed a car painted black on one side and white on the other.
It’s a bold choice. The split design runs straight down the spine of the Ferrari-powered car, with the left side finished in a grayish-white and the right in black. Old-school F1 fans were quick to point out the resemblance to BAR’s half-and-half paint job from 1999.
Sponsor logos are still sparse at this stage. TWG, the ownership group, sits on the sidepods. Jim Beam, Claro and Tommy Hilfiger round out the visible partners. Claro has followed Sergio Perez for years now.
Perez and Valtteri Bottas — neither of whom raced in 2025 — make up the driver lineup. They bring 16 wins and 106 podiums between them, most of that courtesy of Bottas’s five seasons alongside Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. Zhou Guanyu is the reserve. Colton Herta, the IndyCar standout, will handle testing duties.
The team already shook down its car at Barcelona last month.
