F1 testing 2026: Why Barcelona is behind closed doors, what’s different and how the teams are getting on

F1 has made the decision to only allow teams to recover energy from the rear axle, not the front axle. To help recover sufficient energy, they created moving front and rear wings to reduce drag on the straights and allow the cars to brake longer.

This means the removal of DRS overtaking support; because the rear wing opens for a different reason. If one car is one second ahead of another, it will be replaced by an extra boost of electrical energy called overtaking mode.

The focus of this first test will be to ensure that all these systems work and to begin work on optimizing energy use strategies.

Alongside the new engines, the rules mandate for the first time fully sustainable fuels that are carbon neutral and produced from waste biomass or synthetic industrial processes, or both.

Theoretically these are ‘drop in’ fuels that directly replace gasoline. However, in reality, they behave differently due to the number of elements they contain, which requires revising combustion systems to ensure the fuel burns cleanly.

Teams will also be dealing with cars whose aerodynamics have changed fundamentally compared to last year.

Cars are slightly smaller, lighter and narrower, as are tires. In addition to the moving wings, the philosophy behind the chassis rules has also completely changed.

Gone are the underbody venturi tunnels that create ground effect, requiring cars to be run as close to the ground as possible with super-stiff suspension.

In their place, F1 returns to what are essentially flat-bottomed, known as stepped grounds, similar to those from 1983 to 2021.

This means that the aerodynamics will work in a completely different way and as a result the vehicles will behave and need to be handled differently. This could also mean the return of the rake (the rear runs at a much higher ride height than the front, as it did until the end of 2021) and slightly softer springs.