We tried to understand how much slower this year’s single-seaters are compared to the previous generation, but making a direct comparison is far from simple
How fast are the 2026 Formula 1 cars?
The Barcelona shakedown tests are now in the books and, while browsing through the very limited images released by the teams – who pushed for the debut of the 2026 cars to take place behind closed doors, without journalists and away from prying eyes – and considering the scarcity of information regarding mileage and lap times, a first partial certainty is beginning to emerge about the technical revolution ushered in by the new Formula 1 regulations.
The cars born under the new rules, which introduce a substantial and significant increase in electrical power – now accounting for around 50% of total horsepower, effectively matching the output of the internal combustion engine – are not actually as slow as many feared compared to the cars of the recent past. This goes a long way towards dispelling the spectre that had been repeatedly raised ahead of the debut of this new generation of Formula 1 machinery, when there was persistent talk of the risk that lap times could end up dangerously close to those of Formula 2.
The Formula 2 risk avoided
That risk has been quickly dismissed by the facts. Despite the general uncertainty caused by the absence of a public timing system – which gave rise to surreal rumours along the lines of “It was said that Italy were winning 20–0 and that even Zoff had scored with a header from a corner”, something we could frankly have done without in the age of social media and generative artificial intelligence – the lap times filtering out of the Circuit de Catalunya paint a clear picture.
Formula 1 remains comfortably faster than Formula 2. Lewis Hamilton’s best lap with the Ferrari SF-26, a 1:16.348, is a full nine seconds quicker than the pole position time set by Arvid Lindblad (1:25.180) during last year’s Formula 2 round in Barcelona. A gap that is likely even larger in reality, given the less-than-ideal weather and track conditions in January and the fact that Formula 1 drivers were not pushing flat out, as they normally would during a qualifying session.
The difficult comparison with ground-effect F1 cars
While it is now clear that Formula 1 is destined, at the very least, to remain Formula 1 in terms of outright performance, making a comparison with previous generations of cars is far more complicated. The most immediate reference point is the lap time that earned Oscar Piastri pole position during the 2025 World Championship. The young McLaren driver stopped the clocks at 1:11.546, almost five seconds faster than Hamilton’s time on day five of the shakedown.
However, this comparison is extremely difficult for the same reasons already mentioned in relation to Formula 2: track and weather conditions, as well as the very different level of commitment from drivers between qualifying and winter testing. This is despite the fact that the tyre compound was nominally the same. During the tests, the softest tyres available in the Pirelli range were not the C5s, but the C3s, two steps harder, which were also used during the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix race weekend.
At the same time, it is also complex to compare these figures with the last occasion on which Formula 1 ran winter testing at Barcelona. That was back in 2022, at the debut of the new ground-effect cars, when Lewis Hamilton ended the test with the fastest time of 1:19.138 at the wheel of a Mercedes that initially looked fearsome and highly innovative, but ultimately proved to be a flop over the course of the season.
And while the circumstances might seem ideal for a comparison – in both cases the teams were getting to know a brand-new generation of cars for the first time – the fact that the 2022 time is three seconds slower than the 2026 benchmark is misleading. At that time, the Barcelona circuit still featured the very slow chicane in the third sector, which was removed from the 2023 Spanish Grand Prix onwards. In addition, Lewis Hamilton set his best lap in 2022 on the softer Pirelli C5 tyres.
Barcelona with and without the chicane
Given the absence of official sector timing data, it is impossible to directly compare, for example, the first and second sector times between the 2022 and 2026 Formula 1 tests. But can we still form a rough idea? Perhaps, to some extent, yes.
In 2022, Charles Leclerc secured pole position in Barcelona with a lap of 1:18.750, only slightly quicker than Lewis Hamilton’s test time, likely due to the performance difference between the softer C5 compound and the C3 tyres used during the official race weekend. In the following edition, without the final chicane, pole position went to Max Verstappen with a 1:12.272.
That represents a difference of around six and a half seconds, achieved under comparable conditions – dry qualifying sessions and the same Pirelli C3 tyres – but not with the same cars, given the technical evolution of the new-generation machines after a year and a half under the regulations.
Without claiming any great degree of precision, we could therefore consider the version of the Barcelona circuit without the chicane to be roughly five seconds faster than the layout with the third-sector variant. This conclusion is also supported by Formula 2 qualifying data, from a single-make category that does not undergo major year-on-year technical evolution, unlike Formula 1.
In 2022, Jack Doohan claimed pole position with a lap of 1:28.612, while the following year Oliver Bearman was quicker by just over five seconds, stopping the clock at 1:23.546.
F1 2026 around two seconds off 2022 pace
Returning to the Formula 1 shakedown test times from this season, we could therefore add roughly five seconds to Hamilton’s 1:16.348, arriving at an estimated lap time in the low 1:21 range. This suggests that, at the current stage, and comparing the debut of the new technology with the introduction of the 2022 regulations – which, however, are expected to evolve much more rapidly thanks to progress not only in chassis and aerodynamics but also through a deeper understanding of the new power units – the 2026 Formula 1 cars should be approximately two seconds slower than the previous generation.
That figure could even be slightly lower when accounting for tyre compound differences. The upcoming Bahrain tests will, of course, help us to refine this picture further and arrive at a more precise assessment.
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