Pierre Wache claims Ferrari, Mercedes, & McLaren are ahead of Red Bull Racing

It appears that F1 teams today are competing on showing how bad they are, with less than one month separating us from the 2026 season opener in Melbourne after concluding the first preseason test in Bahrain on Friday.

That is definitely due to the game of smoke and mirrors everyone is playing to distract others from what they are doing.

The smart thing is to believe that the top four teams: Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, and Ferrari will naturally be in contention in 2026.

But Toto Wolff has claimed that Red Bull are favorites, to which Max Verstappen responded by saying that the Austrian is just shifting the focus from his team's controversial engine compression saga.

Now, Red Bull tech boss Wache has followed in the Dutchman's footsteps, claiming his team is far from being the benchmark.

Wache said: “It’s difficult to say, but we are not the benchmark for sure. We clearly see the top three teams; Ferrari, Mercedes, and McLaren are in front of us. It looks like, from what our analysis is, that we are behind.

“That’s where we think we are, but it's difficult to say about the others because of the run plan of everybody, the level of fuel they run, the level of power they run.

"It's difficult to say, but this is currently our analysis—that it could be wrong, to be honest. We don't spend too much time on that; we try to focus on how to improve our runs," he added.

Red Bull have impressed with their RB22 and its power unit, but Wache claims he is not satisfied yet.

“I'm never happy with my own work," he said. "Clearly, we have some improvements to do, some challenges around this type of regulation. With the level of grip that is quite low and the level of downforce that is very low.

"The challenge to manage the traction after low-speed [corners] is very high, and that could be one of the keys.”

“I think clearly in low-speed traction they look very strong," Wache said of the competition. "Some straight-line speeds are also interesting from Ferrari and Mercedes, especially on low fuel.

"The problem is that the assessment of the performance is difficult until we are on the same, exactly the same, fuel level during qualifying in Melbourne.

“We clearly see some weaknesses in our car, and we relate it to these weaknesses and the feedback that we have from Max and Isack [Hadjar] on the car, based on where we lose time to the others.

"And that is why I'm saying this. Clearly, traction at low speed and medium-speed corners – that was not our strength already last year – and they are still stronger than us there," Wache concluded. (Reporting by Agnes Carlier)