Who is leading the Formula 1 pack after the Barcelona shakedown?

While Mercedes lived up to their tag of preseason favorites, setting the most laps of any team, Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull were in close contention.

When you sprinkle Adrian Newey’s first Aston Martin and an overperforming Alpine into the mix, there were number of talking points for fans and pundits to mull over. 

Equally, Audi and Cadillac’s early technical gremlins tell a story of two new teams trying desperately to catch up to an experienced field. They’ll have to learn quickly if they’re going to dice with the best in motorsport. There are no excuses for Williams either. James Vowles has been vocal about the team’s progress recently, but they were nowhere to be seen in Spain. 

As always, F1 separates the wheat from the chaff. Those who fail to adapt to this year’s new spec cars will be found out brutally—and some are already outperforming others. So, with all the usual caveats about fuel loads, tyres, and unrepresentative times, here’s a look at how the grid might be shaping up. 

Mercedes dominated the last engine-dominated era of the sport, so they rocked up in Barcelona as early favorites. As it turned out (for now, at least), the hype was warranted. Adding to the faultless 200 km they did at a filming day, the Silver Arrows completed 504 laps of the Catalunya circuit, with George Russell finishing less than a tenth off Lewis Hamilton at the front. 

Of course, there were no “official timings” kept, as it was just a shakedown behind closed doors. But this didn’t stop highlights and interviews from being broadcast around the world, and Russell could barely contain his excitement at the prospect of leading the field. 

On the flip side, Mercedes’ relentless pace didn’t go unchallenged, nor was their car as bulletproof as some have claimed. In fact, Kimi Antonelli admitted that they “had their own issues” on the technical front. Given how little running these cars have actually done, no team has a polished package just yet. This makes Mercedes the current favorites, albeit with a huge asterisk for now. 

That’s right, I’m putting Ferrari in second. After an absolutely shambolic year, Lewis Hamilton is taking tentative steps to put things right with the Scuderia. Race engineer Riccardo Adami has been shuffled out, leaving Bryan Bozzi, teammate Charles Leclerc’s running mate, as Hamilton's temporary help on the pitwall in Spain. 

Ferrari fans are no strangers to swinging from mania to depression. But a faultless start to testing, alongside the fastest lap and a happy Hamilton, marks a great start to pre-season. As the seven-time world champ mentioned post-shakedown, development will be vital this year as each team makes big steps. This is where they fell down in 2022—Red Bull and Max Verstappen tore off into the distance. Let’s see if they can do things differently in 2026. 

Last year’s champions made an inconspicuous start to preseason testing. They completed just 287 laps, the seventh most in the field. Oscar Piastri suffered a fuel systems issue, which ruled him out of Thursday’s running. The good news for those in Papaya is that Mercedes smashing the new rule set would mean a pretty solid customer power unit, so this should be a one-off. 

Lando Norris also managed to push for the fastest lap at the end of the test. After the final day, he spoke of having “identified opportunities and areas to improve.” Let’s see what McLaren arrives with at Melbourne. We know teams were developing parts at the eleventh hour to get them ready for Barcelona. So maybe McLaren have been cooking!

In Spain, they looked fast without setting the world alight. With Bahrain testing just around the corner on February 11-13, the team will be looking to find their mojo. 

On the one hand, Isack Hadjar described his first day in the car as surprisingly productive. On the other, he ended up hitting the barriers in the rain on day two, causing heavy damage to the rear of the car. Only Red Bull and Ferrari engaged in a bit of wet weather testing, so it was risky for the Petit Prost to try his hand in such treacherous conditions with new equipment. 

When Aston Martin finally took the wraps off their 2026 challenger, the rest of the field must’ve thought, “Oh god, here we go again.”

Even through the camo paint, it was clear the team had taken a classic Newey alternative design approach.

Will it pay off? It didn’t for Mercedes when they sliced the sidepods off the W13. And this year’s Aston Martin didn’t make the best of starts. 

It managed just a handful of laps before breaking down. But the boldness of Newey’s dream machine certainly captured the imagination of fans. So it may not be immediately clear if the AMR26 is the car that’ll finally win Fernando Alonso his third drivers’ title.

We have to say “fair effort though.” It’s the biggest question mark on the grid and the car to watch in Bahrain. 

Alpine were arguably the biggest surprise of the Barcelona shakedown. Solid, occasionally fast, and pretty reliable, these were not buzzwords you’d attribute to last year’s car, which was a bit of a sh!tbox in all honesty.

You sense that Alpine gave up early in the last development cycle, and it appears to have paid off with a solid midfield performance in its first runout of 2026. 

Pierre Gasly was consistently fast, as the team racked up the fourth most laps. Just a few days into a new engine partnership with Mercedes as well. Perhaps the engine was to blame after all! In all seriousness, the team ramped up as testing went on, blocking out the noise about Christian Horner’s reported takeover bid to put in a solid, methodical practice session. 

Until fairly recently, this had looked beyond the Enstone team. Hats off to Alpine for a fast recovery; let’s see if this consistency is matched by pace in Bahrain. Overall, on track: better. Off-track: up in the air. 

This might sound harsh on a team that set the third most laps in Barcelona, but Haas were a bit “meh.” Esteban Ocon was full of praise for the relatively small team’s efforts to get everything ready for 2026.

But it’s hard to call their new car anything better than solid. Neither Ocon nor Ollie Bearman was anywhere near the frontrunners on the timing board.  

Bearman also ran into reliability issues on Wednesday, necessitating parts to be flown in for emergency repairs. They were back up and running on Friday though.

So, a bit of a mixed bag. If Ferrari can produce a beast of a power unit, Haas can roll back the years to 2017-18 when they competed at the front of the midfield. Based on Barcelona, however, it looks unlikely. 

After a bit of a disastrous filming day that saw rookie Arvid Lindblad spin off, Racing Bulls made a better start to preseason proper.

Lindblad responded by getting nearly 200 laps under his belt and outpacing teammate Liam Lawson. Neither were particularly fast; hence, I’m predicting they’ll be down in eighth, but they did achieve decent mileage. Even more than Red Bull! Not bad for a number two team. 

In a season at risk of splitting into Formula 1 and Formula 1.5, as teams get to grips with new regs, you can’t help but feel that Racing Bulls’ performance depends on Ford’s.

With Lindblad finding his feet and Lawson lucky to get a second chance, there’s no star to drag them out of trouble either. An unremarkable initial test could tee up a lukewarm season ahead. 

Like Cadillac, Audi have been quick to launch their new brand pre-season. But the wheels came off almost immediately, with the team encountering multiple reliability issues. This despite Audi having the chance to run Sauber from behind the scenes before taking on a new moniker. 

In the days since, they’ve maintained the problems are fixable. Former McLaren, now Audi Technical Director James Key said these mishaps were so likely, it would’ve been more surprising if they hadn’t happened. Which is a strange way of saying that you expected your new F1 car to fail! Let’s not fool ourselves…

Audi flopped on their debut. That said, they have plenty of time to recover. Bahrain is the first opportunity. 

Cadillac encountered a few issues of their own. Veteran Valtteri Bottas said they were focusing on “debugging” after some first-day mishaps. They went on to complete just 165 laps; only Aston Martin and Williams achieved less.

However, having Bottas alongside the experienced Sergio Perez in the car will be a godsend to a team taking its very first steps in F1. 

The decision to start life in the sport with a Ferrari engine could also prove a masterstroke. Not having to develop your own power unit allows for development in other areas. In more capable hands, it set the fastest time of the test to boot.

Patience could be a virtue for the new American outfit; the only team that did worse in Barcelona didn’t turn up. But there are many more testing miles to get things tight. 

No matter how much Vowles tries to dress it up, Williams missing the shakedown is a disaster.

This was valuable testing time for every team. Amid reports of weight issues and failed crash tests, it’s clear that mistakes have been made. It’s particularly embarrassing due to the fact Williams stopped developing so early in 2025 to focus on being competitive in the coming year. 

Vowels has also been so vocal about turning around the team’s fortunes for a boss that has taken Williams back to the midfield.

He’s been churning out soundbites so often and with such confidence lately, you’d think he was Toto Wolff.

All eyes will be on the team in Bahrain, where they’ll need to be fast from the get-go to dispel any talk that they’re already struggling in 2026.