With the first 2026 Formula 1 Bahrain preseason test behind us, we head into the second one with one question: who was the fastest?Lap times are useless when looking to answer such a question, especially at this time, as teams play all sorts of games to hide their true pace while they compete in showing how bad their respective situations are…
But according to some drivers, the new generation of power units and the settings used on every run will make the identification of the best car more difficult.
“It’s so difficult to understand,” Charles Leclerc said. “It was difficult with the previous generation of cars, but now with the hybrid and especially the electrical engine being so much more powerful.
“There are so many small tweaks that you can do, and you can hide the real potential of the car in many, many different ways now. So, it’s very, very difficult for us to understand exactly where we stand.
“What I’m happy of is that we are going through our programme,” the Monegasque said of Ferrari’s test. “We didn’t have any reliability issues so far, and this is a good start. Everything stacks up with what we expected. So that’s a good base to then start to work on and to improve.”
Quizzed to give his prediction of the pecking order and how Ferrari stack up against their rivals, Leclerc said: “I think everybody is trying to throw the ball to the other guys; it’s normal at that point of the season.
“I think Red Bull have shown very impressive things power-unit-wise since the start of the test, especially here. Mercedes are showing some very impressive things as well sometimes. But I would say they are hiding a lot more.
“I would expect them two especially to be a bit ahead of us. Then McLaren is a little bit more difficult to understand, but from where I stand now, it’s Red Bull, Mercedes in front, and then us.
“But it doesn’t seem to be too much of a gap for now,” Leclerc concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)