What we learned from Day 3 of the second 2026 pre-season test in Bahrain

We got a glimpse into what to expect when Formula 1’s 2026 season kicks off in Melbourne, Australia, next month as plenty of teams turned to performance runs on soft tyres in the final couple of hours of pre-season testing in Bahrain – and that helps us build a more detailed picture of where the 11 teams stack up…

Too close to call between the top four teams

At various points on the third and final day of the second pre-season test Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull all showed a turn of pace that suggested they are comfortably among the top four teams.

Working out who is on top, though, is slightly more difficult. Mercedes seem to be the most comfortable – but we didn’t see them do any performance runs while reliability is a concern after Kimi Antonelli lost more track time in the morning with a pneumatic issue.

Ferrari have been very reliable – and did show a turn of speed with some very impressive performance runs in the closing stages of Friday with Charles Leclerc at the wheel.

Red Bull were very solid once again, particularly with Max Verstappen who had the better reliability overall relative to new team mate Isack Hadjar, as their Power Unit continued to impress.

And McLaren upped their game on the final day, with the reigning World Champions looking like they had made a big step in terms of understanding their car relative to the first day.

It honestly couldn’t be set up any better for Australia, with four teams likely to be in the mix.

Haas enjoy one of their best-ever pre-seasons

Haas have quietly gone about their business in Bahrain testing and achieved impressive reliability throughout – and that pattern continued on the final day of testing.

Rarely has it been this smooth for the American team since their first campaign in 2016 and their car has shown a very good turn of pace to boot.

Naturally, there are the usual caveats but it looks like Haas are punching towards the top of the midfield, if not the top, edging out Alpine and Racing Bulls.

“Final day complete in Bahrain and I’m really proud of the hard work that the whole team has put in over pre-season testing,” said Ollie Bearman. “The steps that we’ve made have been super impressive, and today was by far the most productive of the test.”

Williams test goes to plan, but they are still playing catch up

Williams were on the back foot heading to Bahrain after missing the Barcelona Shakedown, but they piled on the miles in a bid to make up ground with boss James Vowles saying the team were able to complete the full programme they wanted to achieve.

He admitted the team, which finished fifth in the championship last year, are “on the back foot” but that there is an “aggressive programme” in order to make sure that the team “extract as much performance in this car as possible over the forthcoming months”.

Given the tough start to their year, Carlos Sainz said they go into the “first half of the year with lower expectations than 2025 knowing that we’ll be starting slightly on the back foot”.

Alex Albon added: “There’s still a lot we need to understand and plenty of performance left on the table that we need to extract, but I’m glad the tests went to plan. It’s now all about maximising the next few days to prepare for the first race of the year.”

Aston Martin suffer painful end to painful test

As Lance Stroll put it, Aston Martin have had a “challenging couple of weeks” in Bahrain. Their running has been blighted by unreliability and it culminated in a bleak final day, which yielded just six laps and ended 2.5 hours early because of a shortage of Honda power unit parts.

“It’s clear the car isn’t where we want it to be performance-wise, and we know there’s a lot of work ahead in the coming weeks and months,” said Stroll. “There’s a long season ahead, and we’ll keep pushing flat out to unlock more performance.”

Aston Martin ended this test with just 128 laps, which is 78 fewer than they managed last week, and the least of any team this week.

“This leaves us on the backfoot going into the start of the season, because we haven’t been able to complete all of the usual tasks typical of winter testing,” said Trackside Chief Mike Krack.

Aston Martin have a mountain to climb – but they do have the resources, the infrastructure, facilities and personnel – including the greatest designer F1 has ever seen in Adrian Newey. It might just take some time for the racing green team to realise their potential.