Red Bull the benchmark based on early running, says Mercedes' Wolff

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff believes Red Bull is setting the benchmark for performance in 2026 so far, following the first day of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Mercedes and George Russell have been installed as the bookmakers’ favorite heading into the new season, with the power unit and aerodynamic regulation changes marking an opportunity for a new competitive order. Despite that, Wolff said that what he has seen from Red Bull during the opening day of testing has shown a level of deployment that Mercedes cannot yet match. Red Bull's Max Verstappen ended the day with 136 laps to his name and the top speed through the speed trap.

“Well, I was hoping that they were worse than they are, because they've done a very good job,” Wolff said. “The car, the power unit, are the benchmark at the moment, I would say. And then obviously you have Max in the car. That combination is strong.

“At the moment, I would say [they are] very much [the benchmark] … Look at the energy deployment today. They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else. I mean, speaking of a second per lap, over consecutive laps.

“On a single lap we've seen it before, but now we've seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same kind of straight line deployment. As per today, on the first official day of testing – which is always the caveat of that – they've set the benchmark today.”

Wolff’s comments come amid a more challenging start to the test for Mercedes than it faced in Barcelona, with both drivers encountering problems during their time on track on Wednesday.

“Today has been difficult, especially compared to the near-perfect running that we had in Barcelona, but in many ways, it has served to highlight a few areas that we need to improve,” trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said.

“George had an interrupted session in the morning. We had several issues that meant we were late getting out first thing; that was due to a few changes in the garage that we hadn't done before during a session and that took a bit longer than expected. On top of that, the car balance wasn't great causing challenges with brake locking, poor traction and general inconsistency.

“Kimi [Antonelli] took over after lunch and during the various changes, we discovered an issue on the suspension that required further investigation. That cost us a couple of hours and, once we had left the garage, we only had time remaining for two sets of the hardest tire to baseline the car and work on our long running.

“We're still learning how the W17 behaves and clearly have a bit of work to do to get in back in the right window. Thankfully, we've got two more days of running this week and are not short of ideas, so hopefully can take a good step forward tomorrow.”