2026 Formula 1 season preview

This year’s off season has been the shortest in Formula 1 history. Indeed there’s been just over a month between the final race in Abu Dhabi and the first official day of testing in Barcelona. With the biggest technical changes since 2014, it’s been a stressful winter for the teams with a heightened sense of anticipation as we head into this new era of F1.

The teams have started doing their shakedowns. The new Audi squad was first out of the blocks, with Cadillac, Alpine and Mercedes also hitting the track at a gloomy Silverstone.

The nine days of testing, starting today, before the opening race in Melbourne will give us some indications of who’s hot and who’s not, but testing is one thing and racing is a whole other story. How many times have we heard that a team has ‘won’ winter testing, only for its pre-season dominance to have disappeared before the lights go green in Melbourne? So as we come out of winter hibernation, I thought I’d try and pick out a few things that I’m looking forward to seeing, and finding out, this year.