New Red Bull pace claim adds to 2026 F1 testing confusion
Red Bull claim adds further confusion to already-murky F1 2026 pecking order.
It appears nobody wants to be fastest heading into the 2026 F1 season, with mind games in full swing.
Mercedes grabbed headlines on Wednesday when Toto Wolff claimed Red Bull’s new power unit was the “benchmark”, revealing his side fears it could be losing as much as a second per lap on the straights to its rivals.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen fired back on Thursday, accusing Mercedes of extreme sandbagging amid an ongoing engine row, before the Silver Arrows went on to set the fastest time of the opening week of Bahrain testing and head a 1-2 on Friday.
Speaking to media in Bahrain on the final day of the first official 2026 pre-season test, Red Bull technical director Pierre Wache shot down the suggestion that the Milton Keynes squad is the team to beat.
“It’s difficult to say [where we are], 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,” Wache stressed.
“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.”
Red Bull’s insistence that they are slower than their rivals has only added further confusion to an already murky F1 2026 competitive picture.
“I think clearly in low-speed traction they look very strong. Some straight-line speeds are also interesting from Ferrari and Mercedes, especially on low fuel,” Wache continued.
“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.”
So who exactly is ahead?
The simple answer is we don’t know.
Last year’s frontrunner McLaren has also claimed to be lagging behind, with reigning world champion Lando Norris insisting that Red Bull and Ferrari are both quicker.
Aston Martin, who many thought would capitalise on the rules reset, is on the back foot, with Lance Stroll alarmingly stating the team could be as much as four-and-a-half seconds from the front of the F1 grid.
It seems as though even Adrian Newey’s genius can’t paper over apparent cracks on the power unit side, with the Aston Martin-Honda relationship said to have gotten off to a rocky start.
That leaves a question mark over Ferrari, who intriguingly has remained particularly tight-lipped about their 2026 prospects.
Unlike their rivals, Ferrari have refused to get drawn into the mind games (at least at the time of writing, with team principal Fred Vasseur due to speak to media at the end of Friday).
Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton simply said it was “impossible to know where the Scuderia stacks up against the competition.
Teammate Charles Leclerc was a little more vocal, suggesting Red Bull and Mercedes are the current leaders, with the caveat that the pecking order is “so difficult to understand.”
Hamilton produced the fastest time of the Barcelona shakedown, and holds the third-quickest time of week one in Bahrain.
Ferrari has somewhat gone under the radar so far in testing. They have quietly gone about their business while others have done the talking.
Even if outright pace is hard to gauge at this relatively early stage, the SF-26 has enjoyed largely strong reliability, with Hamilton’s late stoppage on Friday only a slight blemish on another positive test.
The performance of Ferrari’s new power unit has also impressed their rivals, as well as their long runs.
Expect the fun and games to roll into week two in Bahrain. After all, it is highly unlikely we will know where anyone truly stands until we rock up to Melbourne for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on 8 March.
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
