Laurent Mekies, Red Bull’s F1 boss, has used the word “crazy” to describe the scale of the team’s new in-house engine program. With support from Ford, Red Bull has built its very first F1 engine for 2026, powering its own team and the sister Racing Bulls outfit.

Ten new cars, five days, no fans. And plenty of security. Formula 1 started a new era with the public and the media excluded from the teams' reliability-focused private testing session in Spain on Monday.

Mercedes is the favourite for both constructors' and drivers' title glory in F1 2026, especially as it backed up said promise by being the standout in this week's Barcelona shakedown

George Russell picked up an unusual injury during Formula One testing, with the Mercedes star going on to require medical assistance. Russell, who finished fourth in the Drivers’ Championship last season, has been touted as a potential champion ahead of the 2026 season.

As part of it, we polled readers for their thoughts. The result was a resounding defeat for me, as my position of being “against” F1 testing being held in private scored only 43.7 percent compared to Luke’s “for” argument getting 56.3 percent of the vote.

Barcelona Shakedown with Ted Kravitz and guests every evening this week on Sky Sports F1 at 9pm, also available on YouTube

Williams F1 boss James Vowles says he stands by what he called an “incredibly painful” decision for the new FW48 to miss the first test of the season in Barcelona.

Team sources described this year as feeling “more uncontrollable than ever” because of the extended pre-season schedule and compressed offseason. Between 2023 and 2025, there was just a single three-day test — held in Bahrain each time.