Charles Leclerc reckons the most useful thing about Formula 1’s 2026 revolution might be how effectively it lets everyone lie.
Not in the dramatic, scandal sense — more the everyday, paddock-native art of misdirection. With brand-new cars on track and an all-new power unit formula underneath them, the early-season picture is noisy enough already. Add the sheer number of electrical deployment maps and hybrid modes now available, and Leclerc believes teams have been handed the perfect cover to flatter rivals, downplay themselves, and generally ensure nobody knows what’s real until Melbourne matters.
“I think everybody is trying to throw the ball to the other guys. It’s normal at this point of the season,” Leclerc said after the opening running of 2026, where Ferrari’s SF-26 and the new-era power units finally started to show their hand — or at least, the version teams want others to see.
What’s changed, in Leclerc’s view, is the ease with which you can disguise performance. The previous generation was never transparent, but the 2026 power units — with a far bigger electrical component shaping both lap time and driveability — offer more hiding places than ever.
“It was difficult with the previous generation of cars,” he said, “but now with the hybrid and especially the electrical engine being so much more powerful, there are so many small tweaks that you can do, and you can hide the real potential of the car in many, many different ways now.”
That’s the crux of the current paranoia. If you’re trying to work out who’s quick from Bahrain test data, you’re basically reading tea leaves through frosted glass. Fuel loads, programmes, and engine modes remain the standard unknowns — but in 2026, the “engine mode” umbrella covers a lot more, and Leclerc’s point is that it’s now far easier to produce a lap that looks representative while being anything but.
It’s also why the paddock chatter has become so pointed, so quickly.
Two technical talking points have already bubbled into politics: a compression ratio “loophole” that rivals suspect Mercedes has exploited, and questions around race start revs — with Ferrari the name being whispered this time. Both are on the agenda in Bahrain this week, with discussions expected among manufacturers and in the F1 Commission, where race starts in particular are due to be thrashed out.
The dynamic is familiar: everyone insists they’re worried about someone else. Mercedes, in turn, has pushed back — Toto Wolff and company suggesting the real threat lies with Red Bull, especially in energy deployment. And in the background you have drivers feeding the narrative too: George Russell has pointed to Ferrari’s strength off the line, while Lando Norris has suggested that advantage carries into the SF-26’s race pace.
Leclerc isn’t pretending he’s immune to the guessing game. But he’s not buying that anybody truly knows.
That uncertainty is why Ferrari’s own internal mood seems to be anchored less in lap times and more in whether the basics are behaving. In the first meaningful mileage of the new cycle, Ferrari and Leclerc appear to have banked what teams crave most at this stage: clean running.
“What I’m happy of is that we are going through our programme,” Leclerc said. “We didn’t have any reliability issues so far. And this is a good start. Everything starts up with what we expected. So that’s a good base to then start to work on and to improve.”
It’s a pragmatic line, but it carries weight in a year like this. New chassis, new aero philosophy, new power unit architecture — the temptation is to chase headlines in testing. The smarter teams, historically, chase correlation and stability. Leclerc’s relief at simply having a “base” is telling: Ferrari wants to arrive in Australia with options, not question marks.
As for where he thinks Ferrari genuinely sits once the sandbags come off, Leclerc offered a provisional pecking order — with all the caveats you’d expect.
From his perspective, Red Bull has looked strongest so far on the power unit side, Mercedes close enough to be ominous, and Ferrari a step behind that lead pair. McLaren, he suggested, is harder to place.
“I think Red Bull have shown very impressive things, power unit wise, since the start of the test, especially here,” he said. “Mercedes are showing some very impressiv[e] things as well sometimes, but I will say they are hiding a lot more. And yeah, I will expect them to, especially to be a bit ahead of us.
“Then McLaren is a little bit more difficult to understand.
“But from where I stand now, it’s Red Bull, Mercedes in front and then us. But it doesn’t seem to be too much of a gap for now.”
That “hiding a lot more” line is the kind of throwaway that’ll be clipped, shared, and inevitably weaponised — but it also sounds like a driver who’s spent enough winters in F1 to recognise the pattern. Mercedes has form for running its own race in testing, and if 2026 has expanded the toolbox for disguising true pace, the most disciplined teams will exploit it.
What makes this pre-season feel different is that the concealment isn’t just about lap time. The political skirmishes around compression ratio and start procedures are already hinting at a season where performance and regulation will be intertwined from the off. When the regulations shift this much, the paddock doesn’t simply race — it litigates. And the teams that feel exposed will try to close doors before the first grand prix even starts.
Leclerc’s read, essentially, is: don’t trust the timing screens, and don’t trust the noise. The new power units have made it easier to blur the picture — and until the lights go out in Australia, that blur is exactly where everyone wants to live.
