The F1 season is reaching its halfway point, but most of the teams in the World Championship have their sights set more on next season than on this one. If it weren’t for the superstars of the sport, the drivers themselves, this year’s championship would be of little interest. The new regulations pose major challenges for all the teams, which have more resources earmarked for next year, the new era of F1, than for this season.
The new F1 regulations
Although this statement is not entirely accurate, all F1 teams are starting from scratch and are all contenders for the World Championship next season. All teams will have to build a new car, with new aerodynamic regulations, smaller, slightly lighter, and with a new power unit, which they will have to adapt to their cars. On paper, it’s a level playing field, but the reality is that the big budgets in F1 will always have more resources to break that equality. However, all scenarios are open, many more than we have had this year, where there have been no major surprises—perhaps the poor form of Ferrari and the step forward by Williams, but little else—and everything is going more or less as planned.
The challenge is enormous, because rarely has the FIA made so many changes at the same time. A new era is dawning in F1, a greener and cleaner era, and the race is now being fought in the respective factories to see who will be first on March 8, 2026.
A very busy preseason
And if the challenge is huge, the FIA calendar doesn’t help much. The 2025 season ends on December 7, and three months later, on March 8, the 2026 World Championship begins, two weeks earlier than usual. And of course, there are new regulations, which means there will be more preseason than usual for teams to test their new prototypes.
There will be three months without races, but it will hardly be a few weeks of rest, especially for the factories and engineers, who will have no time to relax. The first preseason tests will take place in Barcelona from January 26 to 30, the first time we will see these new cars on the track. The second and third tests will be in Bahrain, from February 11 to 13 and February 18 to 20. In total, the teams will have nine days to find out how their cars perform, to finalize settings, and to have everything ready for the first race in Australia in March.
This is the 2026 F1 preseason test schedule:
- Barcelona January 26-30
- Bahrain February 11-13
- Bahrain February 18-20
- Start of the F1 World Championship: March 6-8
Battle of the engines
It’s not just the teams fighting to build the best car. The engine manufacturers are also working flat out. Everything points to a battle between Mercedes and Honda. The former will be the major suppliers, with many teams using their power units, while Honda will only be in Aston Martin, the big bet by the Silversone team to storm the World Championship, Fernando Alonso’s last chance to become world champion again.
F1 is preparing for one of the biggest changes in the history of the sport, for a new era of motor racing. There is not much time left, there is a lot of work to be done and time is running out. It will be one of the years with the shortest time between the end of one season and the start of another.