If Ferrari fans wanted to keep hopes and expectations in check going into the new Formula 1 season after a winless 2025, preseason testing did little to help.
It wasn’t solely due to the outright pace Ferrari displayed, as it set the fastest time of the final test in Bahrain. If anything, the greater hype stemmed from the sight of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton’s glossy red cars regularly scything past the rest of the F1 grid in the practice grid starts.
Starts are often decisive in F1 races. If you can pass rival cars and get ahead early, you also gain more strategic control over the pack. Rivals have to take risks to overtake or push harder to catch up.
And in F1 this year, starts have become that much more difficult with the complex new engines. This means if Ferrari has found an advantage in this area, it could be especially powerful early in the season.
Clips of the red cars blasting past the drivers leaving the line more slowly immediately caught attention on social media during the second of two 2026 preseason tests in Bahrain, which took place two weeks ago.
On the second of three days of testing, Hamilton charged past four cars on the run from the lights to the first corner, despite the grid being spaced out more than usual for safety reasons. Ferrari’s rivals took notice.
“To win a race, you’ve also got to get off the line quite well,” said Mercedes driver George Russell in a news conference in Bahrain. “And I think the two (Bahrain practice) starts were worse than my worst-ever start in Formula 1.” He then made mention of how many positions Hamilton had made up with his getaways.
Rapid from Lewis Hamilton at the practice start 💨#F1 #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/5sPixZ2Z7i
— Formula 1 (@F1) February 19, 2026
That added to the positive narrative surrounding Ferrari’s preseason and potential for the 2026 championship.
Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, endured a miserable first year in red in 2025, failing to score a podium all season for the first time in his F1 career. He struggled to match Leclerc — who also didn’t win a race but did score seven podium finishes — for pace all year.
Leclerc ended testing in Bahrain eight-tenths of a second clear on the timesheets — ahead of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.
But while that doesn’t tell the full story of 2026’s competitive picture, given the different things teams test in these sessions, as well as the engine modes they use and the amount of fuel they carry, it was nevertheless encouraging for Ferrari.
The early impressions of its new car’s handling were also positive from Hamilton. He is already enjoying the new car more than last year’s model and the driving style is more to his liking, while he’s also had input to its development and design, which was not the case when he arrived from Mercedes at the end of the 2024 season.
But there’s a reason why Ferrari — and the other teams using its engines — seemed to be so effective pulling away from the lights at the Bahrain practice starts.
Following F1’s rules overhaul for 2026 that encompassed both the car aerodynamic designs and the engines inside, the way F1 drivers pull away from a standing start has changed.
In previous years, the turbo-powered V6 hybrid engines made up for turbo lag — the delay between pressing the accelerator and power being delivered, as a turbo needs time to spin up to start that process — by using electrical power from the engine. This made starts smoother.
Not this year. Under F1’s new rules, which now place a greater emphasis on energy management and usage throughout the lap, the electrical power does not kick in until the car reaches 31mph. As a result, the launch from a stationary position must be done using the internal combustion engine alone, making turbo lag a problem once again.
Concerns about the time it would take for all teams to spin their turbos up in time on the grid before a start involving all 22 cars this year, especially for those lining up at the back that might not have time to spool up their turbos with nobody else to wait for behind, prompted the FIA to trial a longer start sequence in the final Bahrain test.
Once all the cars are in position on the grid, the drivers are given a warning flash of blue lights on the grid-side panels that the start procedure will commence in five seconds. This means all cars have the chance to prepare their turbos.
It’s already proven to be an effective remedy, which would be logical to use at the start of the season in Australia.
Hamilton’s lightning start wasn’t a one-off. Leclerc did the same the following day, as the test finished, while Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman’s Ferrari-powered Haas cars pulled off great starts.
The prime reason Ferrari’s starts are so strong is due to the design of its turbocharger.
F1’s engine manufacturers can opt for different turbo sizes, which impact their performance. A larger turbo is better for overall higher power or in use at high-altitude tracks, where the engine works harder, while a smaller turbo helps with the car’s overall packaging around the engine.
But another advantage of the smaller turbo comes at the start. Because of its reduced size, it can spool up quicker compared to larger turbos, and turbo lag delays are minimized. This offers a potential explanation for why the Ferraris were so good at starting, although it cannot be known if other teams powered by other engine manufacturers were running at full power, given how this is usually turned down during testing.
Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton during 2026 F1 preseason testing in Bahrain. (Giuseppe Cacace / AFP / Getty Images)
Just as the teams have been tweaking the software on their engines to optimize how the battery power is used most efficiently across a lap, the same is true for the start.
Ocon noted how Haas had improved its work with the engine for the new start phase, especially with “the way the boost comes in” upon hitting that 31mph moment. Optimizing this crossover is the key to a good start.
“But if we have improved, then I guess the other manufacturers will be able to improve as well,” said Ocon. “We’ll need to see how this develops in Melbourne (the first 2026 race, which takes place on March 8).”
Antonelli admitted that starts had been “a bit of a weak point” for Mercedes through testing, where it was otherwise very strong. He said the team’s new start procedure was “very complicated.” But he also mentioned it was evaluating changes through testing that may help for Melbourne.
One driver who felt progress with his Mercedes-powered starts was Oscar Piastri of McLaren. “I thought mine (on the penultimate day of the final test) wasn’t too bad,” he said. “I passed about four cars as well.”
Piastri said the starts in Bahrain had been “very random” between teams, and that the difference between a good getaway and a bad one was now much more noticeable.
“It’s trickier from every single angle,” said Piastri. “I think what we’re seeing at the moment is people just getting things right and other people getting them very wrong.
“Certainly in the first few races, we could see some starts that look a bit like what we have (seen in Bahrain). But hopefully we’ll start to converge pretty quickly, if you’re on the bad side of that.”
Even after nine days of preseason testing, the drivers and teams still have a lot to learn and optimize with their new cars, especially in understanding the engine’s battery power and how best to utilize it.
As more races go by, there is likely to be the convergence Piastri highlighted, narrowing some margins between the teams.
But if Ferrari can retain the start-line prowess it displayed through testing going into the start of the new season, and should overtaking be as difficult as some fear with how the new cars reach their top speeds due to the new engine technology, then its fans should be in for a treat.
And in what is set to be a big year for Leclerc, Hamilton and the entire Ferrari F1 operation under team principal Fred Vasseur, given the significance of getting a new car right under new rules, an edge of any magnitude will be grasped gladly.
