{"id":394777,"date":"2026-01-07T21:59:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:59:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/394777\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T21:59:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T21:59:12","slug":"welcome-to-f1-launch-season-plus-how-you-ranked-the-2025-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/394777\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to F1 launch season! Plus: How you ranked the 2025 drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today we\u2019re looking ahead to the first of three seasons in this coming Formula One \u2026 season.<\/p>\n

Because before we get to the 2026 championship itself \u2014 kicking off with the Australian Grand Prix on March 8 \u2014 there are two important portions of every F1 year to get through first.<\/p>\n

Before you know it, official preseason will begin with testing in Bahrain in February (more on that later). But first it is launch season, when every team will reveal its new designs for the year ahead.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Alex, and let\u2019s get into this special time of the F1 year.<\/p>\n

New Car Diary DatesWhat to expect from launch season<\/p>\n

The start of every new F1 season is exciting. A new rules era turbocharges this feeling.<\/p>\n

For fans of teams that have gone years (in some cases, decades) without title success, that \u201cthis is our year\u201d feeling abounds in the freezing January air.<\/p>\n

But with an all-new ruleset comes interest and expectation, as we still don\u2019t fully know what the new designs will look like until they\u2019re finally presented in carbon fiber car parts.<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert: They won\u2019t look quite as sleek and clean as the renders the FIA and the F1 organization pushed out just before Christmas.<\/p>\n

Team engineers have been beavering away, clawing back downforce slashed in the new rule definitions for how cars need to look and behave. This often means there will be plenty of ugly aerodynamic parts that conform to the regulation wording, but utterly obliterate the spirit behind those new rules.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s just what F1 teams do \u2014 make cars as fast as possible within the rules and disregard aesthetics if necessary.\u00a0A winning car is always beautiful, after all.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s another twist to watch out for in launch season: With the five days of shakedown running at Barcelona from Jan. 26-30, being held behind closed doors (a first for the modern F1 era), several teams are choosing to first show off only their 2026 car liveries, rather than the new car designs themselves.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to stress that for commercial reasons, the Barcelona running isn\u2019t designated as a full test. That honor, since 2021, has gone to Bahrain and the televised events F1 holds at the Sakhir International Circuit.<\/p>\n

Here, all the real designs will fully break cover in the first official preseason test from Feb. 11-13. A second three-day test in Bahrain follows from Feb. 18-20.<\/p>\n

It also is possible teams could attend the Barcelona running with cars that are designed just to prove concepts around the new engines, with race-spec chassis upgrades arriving in Bahrain. Mercedes did this in 2022 and Ferrari has already essentially said it will\u00a0take this approach<\/a>\u00a0this year.<\/p>\n

On the livery-only reveals coming before the Barcelona shakedown, back in 2022 and the start of F1\u2019s last rules era, I remember Red Bull brazenly claiming to be showing off that year\u2019s RB18, when in fact it was the team\u2019s 2022 livery plastered on a show car. Luke Smith and I\u00a0were baffled<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The show cars are life-size, real chassis that have been built to mirror the\u00a0FIA\/F1 renders<\/a>, which teams can purchase to place in their factories, for hospitality events or use at the forthcoming launch events. Some will be\u00a0sold off<\/a>\u00a0later to (extremely well off!) collectors.<\/p>\n

These are therefore the key dates for 2026 launch season for all 11 teams, plus what they\u2019ll be revealing in the coming weeks:<\/p>\n

Red Bull:\u00a0Jan. 15 (livery showcase only, but a full launch event in Detroit in partnership with Ford)
\nRacing Bulls:\u00a0Jan. 15 (livery only, at the same event as Red Bull\u2019s senior team)
\nHaas:\u00a0Jan. 19 (car design and livery, online reveal only)
\nAudi:\u00a0Jan. 20 (livery only, but a full launch event in Berlin)
\nMercedes:\u00a0Jan. 22 (car design and livery, online reveal only, with a full season launch to follow on Feb. 2)
\nFerrari:\u00a0Jan. 23 (car design and livery, with a full launch event at the team\u2019s Fiorano test track expected, but so far not confirmed)
\nAlpine:\u00a0Jan. 23 (livery only, but a full launch event in Barcelona)
\nWilliams:\u00a0Feb. 3 (livery only)
\nCadillac:\u00a0Feb. 8 (livery only, during a Super Bowl TV commercial)
\nAston Martin:\u00a0Feb. 9 (car design and livery, with a full launch event expected to be in Saudi Arabia, but not confirmed)
\nMcLaren:\u00a0So far, nothing has been revealed about the reigning champion\u2019s launch plan \u2026
\nPT Reader Rankings<\/p>\n

How you voted for 2025\u2019s best and worst drivers<\/p>\n

On Christmas Eve\u2019s\u00a0festive edition of PT<\/a>, I asked you to vote on F1\u2019s best drivers of 2025. And, unlike Luke and Madeline Coleman in our\u00a0F1 top 10 drivers<\/a>\u00a0feature, you got to point out who did a bad job, too.<\/p>\n

Well, the results are in. You guys don\u2019t like Pierre Gasly!<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen
\nLando Norris
\nGeorge Russell
\nCharles Leclerc
\nOscar Piastri
\nCarlos Sainz
\nIsack Hadjar
\nFernando Alonso
\nKimi Antonelli
\nOllie Bearman
\nNico H\u00fclkenberg
\nAlex Albon
\nPierre Gasly
\nLewis Hamilton
\nGabriel Bortoleto
\nLiam Lawson
\nEsteban Ocon
\nYuki Tsunoda
\nFranco Colapinto
\nLance Stroll
\nJack Doohan<\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0a debate I love<\/a>\u00a0having every year \u2014 and, to be honest, throughout the season, too.<\/p>\n

Everyone has their opinions and preferences when it comes to sports stars. On Gasly though \u2014 sorry! \u2014 but that\u2019s a harsh average and\u00a0down five spots<\/a>\u00a0from where Luke and Madeline ranked him. The Frenchman wrestled an awful Alpine to 11 Q3 appearances in 2025 and brought in\u00a0100 percent of his team\u2019s points<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This does, however, handily highlight how tough it can be to shine in F1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The best drivers can be handicapped by their cars and teams, which here is also reflected in how we, and you, ranked Max Verstappen as the year\u2019s best driver, but he missed out on that world title glory to Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

Thanks to everyone who responded. And to the 46 people who gave Verstappen 1\/10 and Lance Stroll 10\/10: Top effort, but they still landed in the right spots in the rankings.<\/p>\n

Now, onward to F1 2026!<\/p>\n

Outside the points<\/p>\n

\ud83d\uddd3\ufe0f Haas actually\u00a0moved its 2026 launch<\/a>\u00a0back from Jan. 23 to \u201cavoid over-congestion of team launches,\u201d per a team spokesperson. Good for fans and Haas\u2019 marketing.<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfce\ufe0f Audi fired up its first F1 engine within its 2026 car chassis\u00a0for the first time<\/a>. (This is pretty standard procedure \u2014 and something teams have long highlighted on social media at this quieter time of year \u2014 but it demonstrates Audi\u2019s car build is progressing as planned.)<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udea8 Attracting new engine builders was the core aim in adopting the new engine technology F1 is\u00a0introducing this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc68 Verstappen\u2019s engineer \u2014 Gianpiero Lambiase\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0is staying put<\/a>\u00a0for the foreseeable future.\u00a0Reports emerged over Christmas linking Lambiase with a future move away from Red Bull,\u00a0possibly to Aston Martin<\/a>. That said, he could do a deal to move into an even more senior role with another squad once his contract concludes in 2027.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-394777","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}