Official F1 Pre-Season Testing Thread 2026 - Bahrain

PikeyPriest · 18 Feb 2026 at 14:02

CaptainRAVE said:
But what if they can’t test it hot?

I can’t see how they could measure it without internal sensors. These would need to FIA supplied and mean engine design changing. The wording of the regs is so clear, I can’t imagine the teams were aware compression could be higher when hot. It seems more like teams with less powerful PU want to enforce a change on others as they haven’t been able to get the best performance themselves.

Edit just seen the above. Does this mean they will just model the expansion of geometry for the materials? I guess they will know the figures for expansion already to provide to FIA.

UTmaniac · 18 Feb 2026 at 14:34

Johnz0r said:
Aston are really struggling dear me.

I was thinking before testing that maybe Alonso would get a shot at the title this year due to Newey, but looking more likely he needs to pick out a comfy sun chair!

Dr Jack · 18 Feb 2026 at 14:45

PikeyPriest said:
Edit just seen the above. Does this mean they will just model the expansion of geometry for the materials? I guess they will know the figures for expansion already to provide to FIA.

Maybe, or maybe they'll actually heat it up. I guess they can model these things pretty accurately though so perhaps there's no much point of the later.

Feek · 18 Feb 2026 at 15:21

Penalising innovation, what a shock.

mrlizard · 18 Feb 2026 at 15:27

not sure it will make any difference but i think Newey did come out and say the car will look different in Melbourne - not sure that will make any difference to the performance though, it does look woeful at the moment

Jimbeam3678 · 18 Feb 2026 at 15:33

In the days of cost cap surely Mercedes will have a shout of some lenience from the fia or it outside of the cost cap anyway?

Surprising and disappointing in equal measures if it goes through.

Dr Jack · 18 Feb 2026 at 15:36

I guess if they're going to do it then the summer break isn't the worst cutoff, but I'd have thought banning it for next season was more reasonable. But, imo, Mercedes completely complied with the rule and that should be fine. It still might get voted down, of course, but that doesn't seem likely.

Jimbeam3678 said:
In the days of cost cap surely Mercedes will have a shout of some lenience from the fia or it outside of the cost cap anyway?

The engines are not part of the cost cap. Which kind of has to be the way since it isn't clear how you'd allocate the development cost of engines shared between different teams to the teams in a fair way.

Kenai · 18 Feb 2026 at 15:50

Mr Jack said:
But, imo, Mercedes completely complied with the rule and that should be fine.

I do see where the debate arises, when you read the rule literally:

No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0. The procedure to measure this value will be detailed by each PU Manufacturer according to the Guidance Document FIA-F1-DOC-C042 and executed at ambient temperature. This procedure must be approved by the FIA Technical Department and included in the PU Manufacturer homologation dossier.

Whilst the procedure to measure will be executed at ambient, the fundamental of the rule is...

No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0.

...which is an absolute and complete statement. It may not have a compression ratio higher than 16.0. It doesn't qualify that as 'at ambient temperature', it just says it may not be higher than 16.0.

So I can see why the other teams would argue that just because the procedure to measure it was to be conducted at ambient, that doesn't mean that running a compression ratio higher than 16.0 is permitted just because you've engineered it to happen outside of the measurement conditions.

Edit - I think this is a good example of where trying to be too prescriptive with a rule has backfired - arguably it would have been clearer had that rule simply said nothing other than:

No cylinder of the engine may have a geometric compression ratio higher than 16.0.

The additional context of 'and this is how we want to try and check you comply' is what actually introduces the potential for the loophole of only complying during test conditions rather than at all times.

Dr Jack · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:02

That mock start procedure didn't seem to give much support to the idea it's going to be a disaster.

Feek · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:05

How did this compression ration thing actually become public? Surely Merc wouldn't have telegraphed what they're doing?

Dr Jack · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:28

Feek said:
How did this compression ration thing actually become public? Surely Merc wouldn't have telegraphed what they're doing?

Merc asked the FIA for a clarification of the rule. The rule was clarified to say that it would be tested at ambient temperature. The other teams deduced from this that Merc would doing something cunning.

t2na · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:30

Feek said:
How did this compression ration thing actually become public? Surely Merc wouldn't have telegraphed what they're doing?

Merc had asked for some clarity regarding the testing of the compression ratio. Then there's the rumour that Red Bull / Ford had tried something similar, couldn't get it to work so let all the other teams know the loophole and that formed the base for this entire protest.

Dr Jack · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:33

Number of laps per team from Test 2 day 1:

Mercedes - 145
Racing Bulls - 136
McLaren - 124
Alpine - 121
Audi - 120
Ferrari - 114
Williams - 110
Haas - 107
Red Bull - 66
Cadillac - 59
Aston Martin - 54

Worryingly few for Aston, and not great for Red Bull and Cadillac. Audi are impressively reliable given their new entry as an engine manufacturer.

Alibaba99 · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:34

Feek said:
How did this compression ration thing actually become public? Surely Merc wouldn't have telegraphed what they're doing?

People change teams and, until someone invents the red flashy light thing from MiB, take their knowledge with them. RBR hired loads of Mercedes HPE employees when starting RBPT, and as these new engines were being planned for several years, they would have known about it.

It's how the illegal underweight Honda was discovered when they were using the 2nd, hidden, fuel cells for ballast.

Eddie99 · 18 Feb 2026 at 16:46

Kenai said:
I do see where the debate arises, when you read the rule literally:

Whilst the procedure to measure will be executed at ambient, the fundamental of the rule is...

...which is an absolute and complete statement. It may not have a compression ratio higher than 16.0. It doesn't qualify that as 'at ambient temperature', it just says it may not be higher than 16.0.

So I can see why the other teams would argue that just because the procedure to measure it was to be conducted at ambient, that doesn't mean that running a compression ratio higher than 16.0 is permitted just because you've engineered it to happen outside of the measurement conditions.

Edit - I think this is a good example of where trying to be too prescriptive with a rule has backfired - arguably it would have been clearer had that rule simply said nothing other than:

The additional context of 'and this is how we want to try and check you comply' is what actually introduces the potential for the loophole of only complying during test conditions rather than at all times.

The rule seems pretty clear to me that it can't be higher than 16, the only "innovation" going on is in how to cheat the test like Ferrari's fuel flow in 2019. People will naturally argue that it's fine if their favourite team or driver has a Mercedes engine and stands to gain an advantage. It's a shame that they will get to run an illegal engine for over half a season because it's too late for them to change it for the start.

Mesai · 18 Feb 2026 at 17:21

I wonder how much of AM's problem is the car vs the engine. You'd hope Honda would be better prepared this time around if it is an engine issue. I'm quietly happy for Audi though - middle of the road lap times and a respectable amount of laps.

Mesai · 18 Feb 2026 at 17:24

Mr Jack said:
Merc asked the FIA for a clarification of the rule. The rule was clarified to say that it would be tested at ambient temperature. The other teams deduced from this that Merc would doing something cunning.

I thought you were able to ask some things to the FIA in Incognito mode, or is everything revealed to the other teams? Like if a team wanted to avoid having to change the engine mid-season, it might be better to be able to ask more specifically without giving things away.

I guess at the end of the day it's a "small" price to pay if you dominate half the season and then have to follow the norm for the rest of it.

Dr Jack · 18 Feb 2026 at 17:40

Mesai said:
I thought you were able to ask some things to the FIA in Incognito mode, or is everything revealed to the other teams? Like if a team wanted to avoid having to change the engine mid-season, it might be better to be able to ask more specifically without giving things away.

In this case, the FIA clarified the rule in writing by modifying it to specify the testing temperature was ambient. It wasn't just that they answered the question.

Mesai said:
I wonder how much of AM's problem is the car vs the engine. You'd hope Honda would be better prepared this time around if it is an engine issue.

I wonder how much of it is a "Newey wouldn't compromise on aero for cooling and now the engine can't run properly" issue. They also seem to be having gearbox issues, so it might be that the engine is being dialled down because the rest of the transmission can't cope. Who knows, especially with no other team running that engine to compare.

Finners · 18 Feb 2026 at 17:56

Mesai said:
I wonder how much of AM's problem is the car vs the engine. You'd hope Honda would be better prepared this time around if it is an engine issue. I'm quietly happy for Audi though - middle of the road lap times and a respectable amount of laps.

Reading rumours and that's all it is, but it's seemingly the gearbox that is the problem.

Would explain the low revs and seemingly low power they are running.

I'm the same as you, Honda surely have this better under control as these engines are less technical than the last regs and they won championship with them

Mesai · 18 Feb 2026 at 18:30

Mr Jack said:
In this case, the FIA clarified the rule in writing by modifying it to specify the testing temperature was ambient. It wasn't just that they answered the question.

I figured it might be that because they've done it before. I guess in this scenario, it sounds like at least 1 other team was trying something similar so it wasn't a wild guess although I can imagine the wild ideas these engineers dream up to work around the rules.

Mr Jack said:
I wonder how much of it is a "Newey wouldn't compromise on aero for cooling and now the engine can't run properly" issue. They also seem to be having gearbox issues, so it might be that the engine is being dialled down because the rest of the transmission can't cope. Who knows, especially with no other team running that engine to compare.

I'm hoping it's the later because Honda already dealt with the size zero disaster at McLaren so to fail for the same reason would be embarrassing. I can imagine the Newey is very set in his ideas but maybe they weren't planning on being competitive this year.