If you wanted a snapshot of what 2026 is going to feel like in Formula 1, Bahrain’s penultimate morning of testing gave you a pretty good one: McLaren quietly going about its business at the front, Red Bull immediately dangerous the moment it turns the wick up — and Ferrari drawing the biggest crowd despite barely turning a wheel.
Lando Norris ended the session quickest with a 1:33.453, the best time of the test so far, and did it in a way that will have raised fewer eyebrows in the paddock than the stopwatch suggests. The McLaren looked planted enough through the quick stuff, consistent enough over a longer run plan, and Norris logged 72 laps without drama. In early-season testing, “no drama” can be the most flattering description of all.
Max Verstappen, though, played the familiar role of setting an early reference and then sharpening it when it suited. He opened with a 1:38.955 on mediums before the session naturally evolved into quicker runs. Once the times started to matter, he hauled the benchmark down to 1:35.406 and then 1:33.453 — only for Norris to match that figure and nick top spot by 0.131s. Alex Albon briefly sat third as the order churned, while George Russell did what Mercedes will be most thankful for: laps. A lot of them. Seventy-seven, more than anyone else, with a 1:34.111 leaving him half a second off Norris.
And yet the real theatre was in the Ferrari garage.
Lewis Hamilton’s morning amounted to five laps, a return to the pit box, and then a prolonged spell behind screens with the SF-26’s sidepods coming off before anyone outside could glean too much. In pure testing terms, it’s nothing you can’t recover from across a week — but in optics, Ferrari didn’t get the clean, headline-friendly run it would’ve wanted on the very morning it rolled out an eye-catching rear-wing concept.
Because Hamilton wasn’t just doing mileage. He was effectively a moving showreel for Ferrari’s latest aero idea: an active rear wing arrangement that, when deployed, rotates fully upside down on the straights. Not a subtle tweak, not one of those changes you need a slow-motion replay to spot — this is the sort of thing that makes engineers from rival teams suddenly find reasons to “just pop by” the pit wall.
The notable detail is that Ferrari’s mechanism operates in reverse compared to what others are doing, with the upper flap completing a full rotation. That’s the kind of solution that tends to be either very clever or very optimistic; there’s rarely much middle ground in F1 when you decide to zig while everyone else zags. Either it unlocks a clean efficiency gain under the new active aero framework, or it introduces headaches in correlation, balance transitions, or reliability that aren’t worth the trade.
For now, Ferrari simply didn’t give the paddock enough on-track evidence to form a verdict. Five laps is a tease, not a data set, and the fact the car disappeared behind screens so quickly only adds to the sense that this was a carefully choreographed first look rather than a normal test programme. Hamilton did at least reappear at the end of the morning for a practice start on the grid, which provided one more glance at the rear wing in action — and one more reminder that, even in a quiet stint, he still draws the camera.
Ferrari wasn’t the only team losing time to the garage. Cadillac’s morning started slowly too, with Valtteri Bottas stuck in the pits due to an undisclosed issue. He eventually emerged briefly for two laps in the second hour, returned again, then built his running later to finish the morning with a far healthier lap count on the board. It wasn’t a seamless session, but it wasn’t a total write-off either.
As for the broader feel of the running, it continued the theme teams have been muttering about since the first laps of this new era: the cars can be tricky to lean on. Drivers have been fighting for grip and downforce, and Bahrain’s surface tends to expose that quickly. Times are one thing, but the body language through the corners has looked like a season of adaptation is coming — not just for the rookies, but for everybody.
The session wrapped with an FIA-mandated start test, cars lining up on the grid to rehearse getaways while the governing body gathers data on the start issues teams have been encountering. Hamilton joined in, giving the pit lane one last look at Ferrari’s rotating wing before everyone reset for the afternoon.
The order, if you care about it at this stage, read Norris from Verstappen, then Russell, Albon, Oliver Bearman, Franco Colapinto, Gabriel Bortoleto, Liam Lawson, Fernando Alonso, Hamilton and Bottas. But the more interesting takeaway was the split screen this test keeps offering: McLaren putting together tidy, credible days; Red Bull looking like it’s got gears left to shift; and Ferrari arriving with the boldest concept in view — only to spend most of the morning hiding the car behind curtains.
