Still quite a bit of work to do

Max Verstappen stated “there’s still quite a bit of work to do” on his new Red Bull Ford Powertrain after the Barcelona Formula 1 shakedown. 

F1 hosted a five-day private test in Barcelona this week, where all 11 teams were given a maximum of three days running ahead of this season’s wholesale regulation change.

Not only is there a new ruleset, however, but Red Bull – with Ford backing – will make its debut as a power unit supplier, 21 years after its team entered F1, in what is a huge undertaking.

That is why it doesn’t enter 2026 as favourites, despite boasting four-time champion and last year’s runner-up Verstappen, who didn’t really enjoy any proper running in Barcelona until Friday.

It’s because Red Bull gave the whole Monday running to his new team-mate Isack Hadjar, before the Dutchman jumped in for Tuesday morning but conditions were mixed, thus limiting any track time.

In the afternoon Hadjar then crashed with the Austrian outfit not returning until the final day, where Verstappen completed a reported 118 laps to cap off a solid, but not perfect, week. 

“Still work in progress, but I think we’ve hit the ground running quite well with those things,” Verstappen told F1. “It’s still a very complicated formula for everyone, there’s still quite a bit of work to do, but that’s normal.”

One team who does look very strong currently is Mercedes, who completed the most laps this week with its teenage sophomore Andrea Kimi Antonelli even conducting a full race simulation on Wednesday.

Mercedes is favourite for this year’s constructors’ title, partly down to how it dominated the last engine change in 2014, while its star man George Russell tops the odds for the drivers’ crown. 

The Silver Arrows had completed all of its running by Thursday and the confidence oozed through Russell, who also set the second fastest lap of the week behind Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton.

“I think it was a very positive test,” said Russell. “We had lots of mileage on the car, which was the main focus of the test. The car’s feeling nice to drive, no major issues, no porpoising, which is pretty good news for all of us. It’ll save us a few years on the back. So, yeah, all in all, a decent few days.”

This marks a refreshing change for Mercedes, whose eight years of dominance ended with the introduction of ground-effect cars in 2022 as it has since gone without a title. Not a great deal should be read into this week’s shakedown, considering it was mostly about clocking mileage than speed, and Russell certainly isn’t getting ahead of himself.

“On the power unit side, there’s some impressive things from some of our competitors and that’s quite surprising, to be honest,” the Briton added.

“So yeah, well done to them. But obviously, three days into a 24-race season, so you don’t want to judge too much into that. But I think a lot of people anticipated the new power unit suppliers to be sort of struggling and whatnot, and they’ve sort of had a good test as well. So, that’s good for them. But for us, time will tell.”

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