Red Bull and McLaren have their 2026 Formula 1 cars as the first day of preseason testing gets underway at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
A complete overhaul of the technical regulations this year means the first of three preseason tests is already underway, with the opportunity for each car to take to the track on three separate days over the next five.
Red Bull is among the teams that has elected to run on Monday while McLaren will delay its first day at the test until Tuesday or Wednesday after leaving development of the car and virtual track testing as late as possible.
Red Bull had already revealed its 2026 livery on a show car at a season launch event with its new power unit partner Ford in Detroit, but waited until the morning of the first test to release the first real images of its actual car.
Defending champions McLaren will not launch its race livery until Feb. 9 and issued digital renders of its car in an all-black testing livery that will only appear on the car this week in Spain.
– Why is F1 testing in January and why is nobody there?
– Alpine: Horner interested in investing in team
The test is taking place behind closed doors with no media or fans in attendance to allow teams time to debug their cars ahead of the first fully open test in Bahrain on Feb 11-13.
The 2026 regulations are wide-ranging, resulting in new chassis, engines, fuel, tyres and the active aerodynamic on front and rear wings.
Mercedes was the first team on track on Monday — leaving the pits right at the start of the session at 9 a.m. local time with Kimi Antonelli at the wheel. Nico Hülkenberg in the Audi followed him out before Alpine shortly after.
Racing Bulls was the fourth team on track ahead of Cadillac, Red Bull and Haas.
Ferrari has already confirmed it will make its debut at the test on Tuesday, while Williams has announced that it will miss Barcelona altogether due to delays in the completion of its new car.
