Formula 1 is finally back, and this time it is doing so with the doors wide open, with journalists and even fans watching from home able to observe – for the first time without particular filters after the more or less closed-door Barcelona shakedown – the single-seaters of the new era. Starting tomorrow, Wednesday 11 February, the traffic light at the end of the pit lane at the Sakhir circuit will turn green from 8:00 in the morning Italian time (10:00 local time in Bahrain), with the F1 cars allowed on track for testing until 17:00 (19:00 local time), racking up kilometre after kilometre freely, apart from the institutional one-hour lunch break from 12:00 to 13:00.
This schedule will apply for the entire first block of running, which concludes on Friday 13 February, but the same script will be repeated during the second and final part of the Bahrain pre-season, scheduled from 18 to 20 February.
But what should we really expect from these intense days that will act as an appetiser for the big official debut at the Australian Grand Prix on 8 March? Here is a basic survival guide to following the Bahrain F1 tests in the best possible way, without being overwhelmed by them.
Looking beyond lap times
The most common mistake when watching Formula 1 winter testing is getting either overly excited or deeply discouraged by simply looking at the end-of-day (or end-of-session) timing screens. One example, without going too far back in time: in 2025, the fastest driver over the three days of testing was Carlos Sainz, followed by Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. There is little need to remind anyone how complicated the first part of the season was for the Spaniard at Williams, not to mention Ferrari’s enormous difficulties.
The future world champion Lando Norris, on the other hand, was more than a second slower overall, only to then prove himself to be the man to beat from the very first qualifying session in Melbourne.
So, at the risk of stating the obvious, it is worth repeating that lap times depend on a huge number of parameters: the amount of fuel on board, engine mappings, battery management – which this year will be even more decisive than in the past – the level of rubber and cleanliness of the track, air and asphalt temperatures, and of course also the driver’s (and the team’s) choice of how hard to push, or not to push at all.
Different work programmes from team to team, constant-speed laps carried out to perform an “aerodynamic mapping” of the car, as well as a more or less explicit desire to stay hidden, to play mind games by working quietly in the background before surprising everyone in the first qualifying session of the year, are intrinsic and essential characteristics of any respectable collective test session.
The best way to observe the teams’ work
So is everything completely pointless? Obviously not, quite the opposite. First of all, because it is always a pleasure to admire the new cars on track and on TV for the first time, especially at their debut after an epochal regulation change like the one Formula 1 is currently facing.
Then there are the on-board cameras, meaning the footage from inside the individual cars, which can offer some valuable clues about how the machines behave on track. This is especially true at a circuit like Sakhir, which alternates long straights and heavy braking zones, where turn-in and traction on low-speed acceleration are crucial, with long sequences of medium- and high-speed corners.
In 2025, for example, the first slightly more aggressive laps from both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc immediately highlighted that rear-end instability which would go on to negatively define the entire season of the SF-25.
Then there are the highly anticipated race simulations, when drivers – usually during the final two days of testing, so we should not expect this before the 18–20 February session – leave the pits with enough fuel to cover just over 300 kilometres, roughly the distance of a full Grand Prix. These runs provide more reliable indications of race pace, tyre degradation and, from this year onwards, also how and how much the need to recharge the batteries that power the super electric motor, which supplies 50% of the total power, will impact car management during a race.
Comparing average lap times during race simulations can indeed offer some interesting insights, as some – but only some – of the variables, such as fuel load, engine mappings and battery charge level, are inevitably eliminated by the fact that everyone is working on essentially the same programme.
No “winter champion” in F1 testing
Another crucial aspect, especially considering the debut of the new power units, is reliability. This is something many had almost completely forgotten, given that the previous engines debuted back in 2014 – amid countless difficulties and technical problems – and had been effectively “frozen” in terms of development since 2021.
Retirements due to mechanical failures will no longer be extremely rare, and could instead prove decisive in the fight for the World Championship. For this reason, showing that everything is broadly under control, by managing to rack up kilometre after kilometre during the Bahrain F1 tests, can already be a significant indicator not so much of competitiveness, but of a very solid base on which to build future success.
In this respect, it is already worth noting that, aside from the predictable difficulties of newcomer Audi, the Barcelona shakedown has shown a surprisingly high level of reliability from all engine manufacturers.
In short, testing will hardly tell you who will win the F1 World Championship, but it does help you form a fairly clear idea of who might have some headaches to solve back at the factory, while chasing those who have done a better job. This is a concept that is true every year, but in 2026 it could be slightly softened by the revolutionary nature of the technical changes.
The cars and power units seen in Bahrain will be partly different from those that will appear in Melbourne, and probably very different from those that will race at Barcelona, Silverstone or Monza as the season progresses. Starting again from a blank sheet, it is not certain that those who begin on the wrong foot cannot make a substantial recovery over the course of the year. In 2022, for example, Max Verstappen was far down the standings after just a few races, yet he went on to win the title with several rounds to spare, first catching and then pulling away from Ferrari’s drivers, who had started the season very strongly.
Rakes and flow-viz, the real stars of F1 testing
A bit like Michael Bublé on the radio from mid-November onwards, some of the aerodynamicists’ favourite tools will once again take centre stage during the Bahrain F1 tests. These are instruments that can also be seen during normal race weekends, albeit less frequently, during free practice sessions.
On one side there are the so-called “rakes”, namely sensor arrays that are sometimes extremely eye-catching, mounted on the car’s bodywork to better understand airflow and help engineers assess the correlation between wind tunnel data and the “real-world” data collected on track.
Speaking of airflow, another tool used to understand the path taken by high-speed air after it has hit a specific part of the car, or even just a particular aerodynamic element, is flow-viz (or flow-vis). This is a special paint, usually paraffin-based, typically brightly coloured and with high viscosity, which is brushed onto the relevant area of the bodywork.
Once the car returns to the pits after a few fast laps, this allows engineers to infer airflow patterns by analysing the “trails” drawn by the paint across the rest of the livery.
How to follow the F1 Bahrain tests
Finally, there is the question of live coverage. Formula 1 has announced that during the first three days of testing, from 11 to 13 February, only one hour of live TV broadcast will be guaranteed, the final hour of the day from 16:00 to 17:00 CET.
Fortunately, the final block of testing from 18 to 20 February will offer much richer coverage, with live TV broadcasts of all eight hours of daily running. There will of course also be the traditional full live text commentary on ScuderiaFans.com, starting shortly before eight in the morning and running through to the end of each of the six days of Bahrain F1 testing.
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