Pre-season testing ahead of the 2026 Formula 1 season is officially in the books and the start of the new campaign is just a couple of weeks away. But when it comes to figuring out who is in the strongest position for when the lights go out in Melbourne on March 8, you need to look way beyond the lap times.

After all, Carlos Sainz was the quickest of everyone in his Williams this time last year. Of course, they went on to have a brilliant season and finished fifth – ‘best of the rest’ behind the top four – in the constructors’ standings. But they weren’t close to runaway champions McLaren, nor could they hold a candle to Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari who finished a long way clear of them.

Long run data is far more important than hot laps and, while it’s hard to pick a clear pecking order at this stage, one thing that is becoming more and more obvious is that the performance gap between those big four teams and the midfield is likely to be significant. “There’s a big delta between those four and the other seven,” said Haas racer Oliver Bearman.

It’s a blow to those teams who had hopes to use the new regulations this year to put themselves among the front-runners. Williams have had a good two weeks in Bahrain after missing the Barcelona shakedown but don’t look likely to trouble the big teams from the start. As for Aston Martin, they have far bigger problems to worry about.

It won’t matter if Adrian Newey has designed the most aerodynamically efficient car on the grid if their engines won’t get them to the finish line before breaking down. That’s the challenge they face at the moment with new suppliers Honda struggling massively with the reliability of their hybrid power unit.

The AMR26 also looks to be down on power, with Fernando Alonso‘s interrupted race simulation on Thursday showing pace much slower than that of many midfield rivals, and barely quicker than F1 newcomers Cadillac. Aston Martin have completed the fewest laps of any other team in Bahrain, while their running on the final day was extremely limited and ended with two hours and 20 minutes still on the clock, due to a lack of spare parts and an inability to run the engine safely for more than a few laps at a time. Make no mistake, they are in a full-blown crisis.

At the other end of the scale, there’s plenty to be excited about at Ferrari and Charles Leclerc finished with the quickest lap of pre-season, nearly a second quicker than anyone else managed on Friday. They have showed off some weird and wacky inventions in Bahrain this week but also demonstrated strong pace. Crucially, Lewis Hamilton has already said he feels much more at home in his new red car than he ever did in the first last year. We have yet to see what the seven-time world champion can do when confident behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

And what of Max Verstappen? Red Bull have been hailed as the ones to beat by Mercedes in recent weeks, but that probably says more about the Silver Arrows than anyone else. Their rivals suspect they have been hiding their performance throughout the whole of pre-season and the fact both team principal Toto Wolff and star driver George Russell have been going out of their way to sing Red Bull’s praises speaks volumes.

I spoke to former F1 TV host and Drive to Survive star Will Buxton this week, who had some great advice: “People find it very, very difficult to hide their body language… When a driver has a good car underneath them they hold themselves in a completely different way to a driver who’s ultimately driving a pig.” And, without a doubt, the most relaxed man in all of Bahrain over the last two weeks has been Russell.

He is the bookies’ favourite to win the drivers’ title and it’s hard to argue against that. The W17 looks settled, has shown strong race pace and, most importantly of all, it looks like Mercedes will be allowed to use their under-fire engines until at least the summer break. That means 13 races out of 24 likely with a performance advantage because of their higher compression ratios when heated up through use. Verstappen and Lando Norris will be understandably concerned.

All Mercedes-powered teams will benefit, and that means McLaren are also likely to be a threat. 2025 champion Norris has, of course, been talking his team down and saying there is a lot of work to do to become competitive, but he looks well placed to be able to mount at least a decent title defence. And team-mate Oscar Piastri may have the chance to make up for missing out last term.

But, as the works team, Mercedes will always have the advantage as they are the ones who get all the on-track data from their engines first. We don’t yet truly know what will happen in racing conditions, but right now you’d be very brave indeed to suggest anyone other than teenager team-mate Kimi Antonelli and, maybe, the McLaren pair can stop Russell’s title march this year.