Max Verstappenmentioned “there’s still a significant amount of work to be done” regarding his new Red Bull Ford Powertrain following the Barcelona Formula 1 test session.
F1 conducted a five-day closed test in Barcelona this week, with all 11 teams allowed a maximum of three days of running before the major rule changes for this season.
In addition to a new ruleset, Red Bull—supported by Ford—will be making its debut as a power unit provider, 21 years after its team joined F1, marking a significant challenge.
That is why it isn’t entering 2026 as favorites, even though it has a four-time champion and last year’s runner-up, Verstappen, who didn’t have much proper practice in Barcelona until Friday.
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It’s because Red Bull provided the entire Monday practice session to his new teammate.Isack Hadjar, before the Dutchman entered for Tuesday morning but the conditions were variable, thus restricting any time on the track.
In the afternoon, Hadjar crashed with the Austrian team, which did not return until the last day, when Verstappen reportedly completed 118 laps to conclude a strong, though not flawless, week.
Still a work in progress, but I believe we’ve started off quite well with those aspects,” Verstappen said to F1. “It’s still a very complex formula for everyone, there’s still a lot of work remaining, but that’s expected.
A team that appears extremely formidable at the moment isMercedes, who completed the highest number of laps this week with its teenage second-year studentAndrea Kimi Antonellieven performing a complete race simulation on Wednesday.
Mercedes is the top contender for this year’s constructor’s championship, partly because of its strong performance following the engine change in 2014, while its leading driverGeorge Russellleads the standings for the drivers’ championship.
The Silver Arrows finished all their testing by Thursday, with Russell exuding confidence, having also recorded the second quickest lap of the week behindFerrari’s Lewis Hamilton.
I believe it was a very favorable test,” stated Russell. “We achieved a significant amount of distance with the car, which was the primary objective of the test. The vehicle handles well, with no major problems, and there’s no porpoising, which is excellent news for everyone. It will help us save some time in the future. So, overall, it was a good few days.
This represents a positive shift for Mercedes, whose eight-year reign concluded with the arrival of ground-effect cars in 2022, after which they have remained without a championship. Not much should be inferred from this week’s test session, as it primarily focused on accumulating distance rather than speed, and Russell is certainly not getting ahead of himself.
“On the engine unit front, there are some remarkable developments from certain rivals, which is quite unexpected, to be honest,” the British driver added.
Sure, well done to them. However, it’s only three days into a 24-race season, so you don’t want to draw too many conclusions yet. I think many people expected the new power unit suppliers to face some challenges, but they’ve had a solid test as well. That’s positive for them. But for us, only time will tell.
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