Zak Brown didn’t need a timing sheet to come away from Barcelona with the same takeaway most of the paddock quietly shared: the familiar names still look like the sport’s centre of gravity heading into 2026 — and Red Bull’s first homegrown power unit effort is very much part of that conversation.
The McLaren Racing CEO has been watching the early running of the new-generation cars closely, and what stood out to him at the closed-door shakedown at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya wasn’t just who looked sharp, but how quickly the biggest outfits appear to have wrapped their arms around a regulation set that’s supposed to reset the order. Smaller, lighter cars. Active aerodynamics. And a new power unit split that leans far harder on electrical deployment than anything we’ve seen in modern F1.
“It looks like the big four are the big four,” Brown said, speaking via the David Land YouTube channel. McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, again — at least on first glance. “Hard to know yet in what order.”
That caveat matters. Early testing in a new formula is notoriously noisy: programmes vary wildly, teams hide what they can, and the cars themselves are still being understood at a basic level. But Brown’s read was that Mercedes, right now, carries itself like the favourite. “If you went to Vegas today, I think Mercedes looks like the favourite sitting here right now, but a long way to go,” he said.
Not everyone even got a clean run. Brown noted Williams “didn’t make it out” and Aston Martin only appeared late, leaving their true level a complete unknown at this stage. In that context, any confident ranking of the midfield is basically astrology.
Where Brown’s comments get more interesting is in what they imply about the shape of racing under these rules. He expects the field to spread as teams interpret the new package and claw back performance — a normal side effect of a hard reset — but also hinted that the bigger story may be how drivers are forced to manage energy on track.
Last season’s Abu Dhabi benchmark was a grid packed into an extraordinary window. Brown thinks those days are, temporarily, gone. “I would anticipate it being two or three seconds covers the entire field,” he said, framing it as the typical early-cycle gap before convergence begins.
That’s one kind of spread. The other is more subtle, and potentially more contentious: the way cars are running out of electrical deployment before the end of long straights. It’s a concern that’s been hanging over the 2026 concept for months, and in Barcelona it became real. Drivers have already talked about the need for downshifting, lift-and-coast, and generally racing the power unit rather than simply driving flat-out to the braking zone.
Brown’s not railing against it — but he’s clearly wary of where it could lead if left untouched.
“We’re going to have to learn how to race these cars a little bit differently, because they run out of deployment,” he said. “So I still think there’s some work to be done with the FIA to refine the rules to make sure that while there’s strategy in how you deploy the battery and the energy, that we’re not running out of energy at the end of straits and getting into lift and coast.”
That’s the crux: there’s a difference between energy management as a layer of tactical nuance and energy management as a limiter that pushes drivers into visible conservation at the wrong moments — especially on the straights, where the sport sells speed and commitment. Brown’s view is that fans might not immediately notice because overall lap times are still well off last year’s pace — “three, four seconds” by his estimate — but that doesn’t mean the underlying behaviour isn’t there.
It’s also a rare example of a team boss openly pointing the finger at a regulation detail while there’s still time to tweak it. Once Bahrain arrives and the sport pivots into full public pre-season mode, positions harden quickly. Nobody wants to be seen lobbying for changes that benefit their own weaknesses. Brown’s framing — “refine” rather than rewrite — is telling.
And then there’s Red Bull.
For all the talk about 2026 being a new era with fresh manufacturers and a reshaped grid — Audi taking over Sauber, Cadillac arriving as an 11th team, Ford returning via its partnership with Red Bull — the big question in the pitlane has been whether Red Bull Powertrains could land its first engine programme without wobbling. Designing a power unit from scratch is a different discipline to developing a car, and the sport’s history is littered with ambitious projects that arrived late or fragile.
Brown’s read from Barcelona was blunt: it looked the real deal.
“The Red Bull engine was very strong,” he said. “I think everyone was, let’s say, pleasantly surprised. I’d rather them not be as competitive, but impressed with what they’ve done, because they came out, they did a lot of miles, and they seem to be very competitive.”
Mileage is the key detail there. Everybody can find a headline lap if they want one — even in a closed test where numbers leak without context — but it’s the ability to run, repeatedly, without drama that sets the tone for a season. Red Bull’s programme, as Brown described it, wasn’t just quick; it looked organised.
In a winter where unofficial timings had Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton pegged as the quickest across the five days — reportedly with a 1:16.348 late on the final day on soft tyres — Brown’s focus on the “big four” and on power unit behaviour reads like a more honest yardstick than any single lap ever will.
The next reality check comes in Bahrain, with the first official pre-season test running 11–13 February, followed by a second session from 18–20 February. By then, the sport will have to stop speaking in hypotheticals and start answering specifics: who can deploy energy without compromising racecraft, who’s found downforce without paying too much drag, and who’s arrived ready to lead rather than chase.
The season begins in Australia on 8 March. Brown’s already hinting that when it does, the sport won’t just look different — it might have to race differently too.
