McLaren released digital renders of the MCL40 in a black-and-silver one-off test livery for the Barcelona shakedown. The images show Oscar Piastri’s No. 81 alongside reigning champion Lando Norris’s No. 1 and reveal technical changes, including a drooped nose, ramped sidepods, and a return to front push‑rod suspension, plus slightly larger Mastercard logos.

McLaren said the scheme is a temporary test livery and will stage an official full‑season reveal on February 9. The team said the MCL40 is designed to build on the MCL39’s performance. The MCL39 is credited with 14 wins and back‑to‑back constructors’ titles, a run that culminated in Norris’s drivers’ crown, and the new car reflects an ambitious, 20‑month redesign affecting chassis, power‑unit integration, and tire work.

The team will skip the opening day of the five‑day Barcelona shakedown and is likely to use three of the five days, possibly starting on day two or three. The MCL40 had not completed any filming or shakedown runs before the limited running. Chief designer Rob Marshall said the restricted programme is likely to mirror what McLaren will take to the first race rather than beginning from a deliberately basic baseline.

Team principal Andrea Stella framed the compressed test plan as a way to maximise on‑track development and said the wider programme remains on course despite the scale of the redesign. McLaren is targeting the Australian Grand Prix in March as its first competitive reference point to validate the car in race conditions, with several rivals also adopting staggered Barcelona schedules.

Red Bull released images, video, and renders of its 2026-spec RB22 on the opening day of pre-season testing in Barcelona. The team had earlier unveiled a showcar and livery at an event in Detroit, but withheld detailed angles until on-track sessions began.

The RB22 is presented as an integrated package for the 2026 regulations: it follows the new chassis rules, uses active aerodynamics, and is designed around an approximately 50:50 split between combustion and electric energy. Power comes from the DM01 power unit, the first in-house engine developed with Ford and named after the team’s late co‑founder, Dietrich Mateschitz. Sister team Racing Bulls has already run its VCARB03 chassis with the DM01, giving Red Bull an early data point.

Driving duties are shared by four-time champion Max Verstappen and rookie Isack Hadjar; both debuted new helmet designs and Sparco race suits for the launch. Verstappen told Team Redline’s Twitch stream he felt “pretty chilled” and was relaxed about the car’s competitiveness. The Barcelona test runs for five days, and teams are limited to a maximum of three running days. Red Bull chose to run from day one, matching Audi’s approach while other teams expected to start later. With early on-track mileage constrained, Red Bull is positioning the RB22 and DM01 as a combined statement of its technical direction for 2026, with detailed performance assessment pending the forthcoming track data.

Former world champion Damon Hill said Adrian Newey’s move to Aston Martin could spark a Brawn GP–style upset when F1’s new 2026 regulations take effect at the season opener in Melbourne in March. Newey joined Aston Martin on March 1, 2025, and has since been involved in the team’s 2026 project. Hill called the scenario plausible, but not certain.

He contrasted that potential with Aston Martin’s recent slide: the team finished seventh in the 2025 Constructors’ standings and had not won since the 2023 São Paulo Grand Prix. Hill cited Jenson Button’s 2009 title with Brawn GP as a precedent for how a rules reset can reorder the pecking order.

Newey produced the AMR26 as his first car for Aston Martin and brings a record that includes more than 200 race wins and a combined 26 drivers’ and constructors’ championships. At the 2025 Monaco Grand Prix, Newey publicly identified weaknesses in the team’s driver-in-the-loop simulator; afterward, Aston Martin hired Giles Wood as simulation and vehicle modeling director and engaged former Ferrari simulation lead Marco Fainello as a consultant to strengthen that capability.

Separately, Honda revealed its 2026 power unit in Tokyo and has signaled a full works return, although Honda president Koji Watanabe acknowledged development problems, saying “not everything is going well.”

Reporters and Hill framed the comparison as a realistic possibility rather than a prediction. Newey’s expertise, the simulation hires, and the wholesale technical reset create pathways for rapid improvement, but actual competitiveness will be proven on track. With the F1 rule change coming into force in March and Honda’s package still carrying uncertainty, any Aston Martin resurgence remains contingent on preseason and race-day performance rather than confirmed by the off-season narrative.

Pirelli has confirmed tire compound allocations for the upcoming five-day pre-season shakedown at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Teams may run on only three of the five days. Available rubber includes three slick compounds, including C1 (hard), C2 (medium), and C3 (soft), plus intermediates and full wets. Pirelli described the week as a tire-focused preparation rather than a full aerodynamic programme.

Cadillac will make its first on-track outing in a championship environment during the Barcelona shakedown. Williams withdrew after significant FW48 assembly delays, leaving one team absent from the private running.

Team allocations reveal contrasting test priorities. Red Bull took 18 sets of C3 softs, only one set of C2 mediums, and no C1 hards, signalling a short-run, peak-performance focus. Mercedes brought a paddock-high eight sets of C1 hards, requested 12 C3s (per reports), and skipped C2s, indicating emphasis on long runs with some short-run work. Ferrari prioritized medium-run data with 12 C2s and just three C3s. Both Ferrari and McLaren will skip the shakedown’s opening day. Other notes from the build-up to the Shakedown include Williams reportedly ordering 17 C3s before withdrawing, Haas requesting the most intermediates (six), and Audi securing the most wets (three). An unnamed reference to the reigning world champions recorded a balanced split of four hards, ten mediums, and six softs.

With teams limited to three running days, these inventory choices will tightly shape the data each squad can gather in Barcelona and help set the early direction of their 2026 programmes: heavy soft allocations point to qualifying-style exploration, while larger hard inventories indicate priorities around extended running and race simulation.

Haas completed the maiden laps of the VF-26 at Ferrari’s Fiorano test circuit, with junior Oliver Bearman driving and teammate Esteban Ocon observing. The run produced the first on-track images after the car’s online launch earlier this week, including a photo captioned ‘The VF-26 is alive’ showing Bearman leaving a Shell-branded garage on Pirelli intermediate (demonstration) tyres. The VF-26 carried prominent Toyota Gazoo Racing branding during the outing.

Haas described the activity as a shakedown to collect vital data and perform systems checks ahead of the official Barcelona pre-season test, scheduled for January 26–30. The team did not clarify whether the Fiorano running fell under a filming-day allowance (which permits up to 200 km) or a shorter demonstration run (up to 15 km), leaving some procedural details unspecified.

Team principal Ayao Komatsu said Haas will bring a different specification to Barcelona than the car it plans to race in Australia. He stressed that the team is on an aggressive development program to adapt to 2026 technical priorities, including the roughly 50:50 split between internal combustion and hybrid power. Komatsu reaffirmed that Haas’s foundational technical relationship with Ferrari, including the use of Ferrari power units, remains intact despite the new title partnership and strengthened technical alliance with Toyota. The principal emphasized there will be no crossover between the two teams’ technical programmes. Haas positioned the Fiorano outing as an important early step in preparing the VF-26 and the team’s programme for the new era of Formula 1.

This week, Audi launched a development program to identify and nurture drivers from karting through the single‑seater ladder, offering a pathway to F1. The initiative was announced alongside the unveiling of Audi’s F1 car, the R26, and forms part of a five‑year plan, following the entity’s acquisition of Sauber. Audi outlined their road map for the future, revealing its ambition to win a world championship by 2030.

Former F1 driver and three‑time Le Mans winner Allan McNish will lead the programme, bringing experience from sports car racing and senior management roles within Audi.

Audi said the program will give prospects access to the company’s technical resources, engineers, and specialists, along with training in engineering, human performance, media, and marketing. The aim is to embed young drivers in Audi’s technical and operational culture and to prioritise resilience, intelligence, and a team‑driven mindset with raw speed.

Team principal Jonathan Wheatley described the initiative as a key pillar of Audi’s long‑term F1 strategy and part of its vision toward 2030.

The move places Audi alongside other works-run talent systems, such as Red Bull, Alpine, and McLaren, programs that have produced champions including Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstappen, and Fernando Alonso. Audi acknowledged that building and maintaining such a pipeline requires significant investment and carries risk, but framed the program as evidence of a continued commitment to building a competitive, sustainable F1 team.

Alpine staged its 2026 season launch on an MSC Cruises ship off the Catalan coast near Barcelona, unveiling a glossy showcar that retained the team’s trademark blue with prominent BWT pink branding. The display car was presented as an illustration of the team’s look under the new regulations rather than the final A526 race car, giving fans a clear view of the blue-and-pink sidepod graphics and sponsor placement at the event.

Earlier in the week, Alpine completed a limited shakedown of the Mercedes-powered A526 at Silverstone, where Pierre Gasly covered roughly 140 km of the 200 km permitted on a wet, dark day. Initial images from that run showed noticeable differences in engine and sidepod packaging when compared with the Mercedes factory car, a visible consequence of Alpine’s shift from works status to a Mercedes customer supply arrangement under the 2026 engine rules.

Executive technical director David Sanchez said the A526 faces fresh challenges from new features such as active aero and increased electric power as a result of Alpine’s technical partnership with Mercedes-AMG. The Enstone team substantially scaled back work on the 2025 car to concentrate resources on the new regulations, a strategy that left Alpine with a disappointing 10th-place finish in the 2025 constructors’ championship with 22 points. Pierre Gasly has committed his long-term future to the team and will race alongside rookie Franco Colapinto in Colapinto’s first full Formula 1 campaign. Alpine plans to take the A526 to the opening pre-season test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on January 26–30 to finalize preparations for the 2026 season.

Ferrari unveiled the SF-26 at its Fiorano base in a 10:30 GMT livestream, releasing digital images ahead of the rollout. Drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton attended, and the car undertook initial laps at Fiorano later that day, ahead of Barcelona pre-season testing scheduled to begin in three days. The timing was intended to give Ferrari early on-track data ahead of the formal test program after the team paused SF-25 development to concentrate resources on a clean-sheet 2026 challenger.

The 2026 regulations bring a new power-unit architecture and a revised aerodynamic philosophy, which Ferrari described as a rare opportunity to end an almost 20-year constructors’ title drought and return to drivers’ title contention. Team leaders pointed to the move to an in-house power unit and a reorganized technical leadership under Loïc Serra as potential long-term advantages, while stressing that eliminating past operational lapses will be critical to turning potential into results. Leaks and reporting around the launch suggested a return to pushrod suspension at both ends (including possible double-pushrod geometry) and experimentation with steel cylinder heads for the new power unit; those technical details remained unconfirmed at the official presentation.

Against a backdrop of a disappointing 2025 season, Ferrari finished fourth in the constructors’ standings with no wins. The launch combined a new livery, an on-track shakedown, and an operational message of renewed focus. Charles Leclerc, signed through at least 2026, outperformed his team-mate in 2025, while Lewis Hamilton recorded his first season without a podium after moving from Mercedes, leaving both drivers under pressure to deliver. The Fiorano shakedown and upcoming Barcelona tests will be the first practical measures of whether Ferrari’s technical and organizational changes translate into a genuine step forward on track.

Racing Bulls, the Faenza-based VCARB F1 squad, appointed Dan Fallows as technical director, and he will join the team in April. He will oversee the team’s design, aerodynamics, and performance programmes and will report to chief technical officer Tim Goss. The post had been vacant since Jody Egginton moved to Red Bull Advanced Technologies, and Racing Bulls said the hire is part of a push to accelerate its development ahead of the 2026 season. The team’s new car, the VCARB 03, completed its first run at Imola earlier that week.

Fallows returns to the Red Bull group after a long F1 career. He worked at Jaguar from 2001 to 2004 and at Red Bull from 2006 until 2021, and he was recruited to Aston Martin as technical director in 2022. He was dismissed after a disappointing 2024 campaign and left Aston Martin’s F1 operation at the end of 2024. After a spell at Aston Martin Performance Technologies, he founded Hiperformant in June 2025 to apply F1 expertise to high‑performance engineering and business development; reports said his Racing Bulls appointment comes about ten months after he moved on from Aston Martin Performance Technologies.

Team principal Alan Permane called Fallows’s technical understanding and leadership “a real asset,” while the man himself said he was “very pleased to be joining VCARB at an exciting time for the team.” However, he cautioned that it will be some time before a design he directly influences reaches the track. Fallows will assume full responsibilities in April after completing his gardening leave.