Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur expects Formula 1 teams to introduce B-spec cars during official pre-season testing in Bahrain next year, following January’s shakedown in Barcelona.
New aerodynamic and powertrain regulations see the 2026 cars differ significantly from their predecessors, and led to a five-day test in Spain at the end of January to test the new designs for the first time. As in 2014, the main focus at that stage will be on reliability, ahead of two pre-season tests in Bahrain, where Vasseur believes two different types of cars will be used ahead of the opening race.
“I think everyone will do it,” Vasseur said. “But in this situation the most important thing is to make kilometers. It is not about chasing performance, but about making kilometers, to validate the technical choice of the car and then to achieve performance. I think everyone will come to Barcelona with not the real car, but a ‘spec A.'”
With Ferrari launching its new car on January 23 next year, Vasseur says the Barcelona race will allow teams to identify potential major issues that need to be addressed, as testing in Bahrain is likely to be too close to the first round in Melbourne for that.
“It is true that we are no longer used to nine days of testing,” he said. “We’ve done three in the last four or five seasons. It’s an advantage, but it’s also a completely different program. It means the first goal for this kind of season is to get reliability.”
“You still remember perfectly the season of 10 or 15 years ago, during the first races you had a huge percentage of DNFs. It means that we first have to make kilometers. What we also want to avoid compared to 2025 is that we lost at the beginning of the season due to the disqualification [in China]. We’ve lost miles, we’ve lost reference, and so have you [chasing] hereafter. It’s a long process.
“The first focus in Barcelona is that we have to get kilometers for the car, to understand the reality of the car, where we need to improve or what we need to react to. Because if we want to have something for the Bahrain T02, we don’t have time to react for Australia. The first goal – the promotion day no, but Barcelona – will certainly bring more kilometers than pure performance.”
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