Fred Vasseur says all Formula 1 teams will bring upgrades to second Bahrain Preseason test

This second test will be the third time the teams have run their 2026 F1 machinery ahead of the season, the first being in the private shakedown in Barcelona, where Ferrari brought a spec A of their SF-26, which was also tested in Bahrain, albeit with some new parts added.

It has to be said that Ferrari showed decent reliability while performance is still a question, something the Scuderia boss, Fred Vasseur, insists is not the focal point now.

When asked about how the first version of the SF-26 performed, Vasseur said: “Yeah, on this side I would say so far so good, that we did something like 4,500 km so far.

“It went pretty well on the reliability side, and it’s the best way to collect data and to try to understand what are the options and how we can improve the car step by step. We are not speaking at all about performance so far, but everybody is focused on themselves.

“We can’t make any comparison, but so far it went well on our side to build up the knowledge of the car step-by-step. It’s still a long way to go," the Frenchman insisted.

Vasseur insists Ferrari, as well as rivals, will have some significant upgrades in the second test on February 18, as the development process of all cars will start ramping up as we edge towards the season-opening race in Melbourne on March 8.

He said: “I’m really convinced that everybody will bring huge upgrades next week and perhaps again in Melbourne.

“And it will be like this at the beginning of the season because the rate of development is very, very high, and it makes sense to speed up the new parts and the lead time on the new parts, but I’m focused on myself.

“You always want to do more—you always want to do more laps," Vasseur answered when asked whether he was happy with his team's preseason so far, "but overall I think it went pretty well, that we didn’t have any big issue on the reliability, that we didn’t stop the car so far.

“This is good—we have a good correlation; it’s positive. But it’s nothing about performance—it's about the quality of work that we are doing in the development," he concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)