F1 pre-season test: Martin Brundle says Mercedes’ ‘relentless’ pace and reliability cannot be ignored after Barcelona shakedown | F1 News

Sky Sports F1’s Martin Brundle said Mercedes’ “relentless” pace and reliability “cannot be ignored” after the Barcelona shakedown.

During the five-day event in Spain, lap times were virtually irrelevant as teams completed as many laps as possible to test reliability and collect data for the new 2026 car.

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was fastest by a tenth of a second from Mercedes’ George Russell, but the Silver Arrows covered the most distance with 500 laps, with Ferrari in second place with 440 laps.

“Mercedes have never really done well with their ground effects cars. They were porpoising but they never really got it right. A lot of times they didn’t understand how the car was performing and they didn’t really understand why,” Brundle told Sky Sports F1 ahead of Hamilton’s strong final day of practice on Friday.

“Obviously they seem to be passing this completely different regulation, but we’ll have to see what happens at normal track temperatures. It’s going to be about (power) regeneration and recharging the battery, but of course it will regenerate like any other Mercedes-powered car, and probably a Ferrari-powered car as well.”

Mercedes has dominated F1 since the last power unit regulation change in 2014 and will look to build on its strong shakedown with two Bahrain tests on February 11-13 and February 18-20.

Brundle said it was “too early” to judge the team’s concept, but believes Mercedes has found a “sweet spot” at the very early stages of F1’s new era.

“On a cold day, the tires just flare up so much that some cars may end up overheating on a hot day. This is a problem that Mercedes has had in the past,” he said.

“I think we need to be calm, but we can’t ignore their relentless pace and reliability. So it’s clear they have a really good, cohesive package.”

Brundle: Is there a question mark over Aston Martin?

Aston Martin completed just 65 laps at Barcelona, ​​the fewest of the 10 teams that raced there, with Williams missing the entire event.

However, when Aston Martin started the car in black on the penultimate day, it attracted a lot of attention as the car’s design was different from the rest of the grid, with aggressive bodywork to change airflow.

Adrian Newey has had a big say in the 2026 car design after joining the team last year, and Brundle believes patience will be needed to see if Newey shows his genius again.

“Adrian’s cars tend to have a nice, wide-spread, very even airflow, and you see that in all of his cars. His cars don’t seem to have as much hanging parts as other cars,” he said.

“The undercuts on the sidepods were really difficult and we saw different interpretations of some of the sidepods and the front wing as a whole, which is not surprising with these new regulations.

“You have to assume that Adrian has come up with some good ideas, but does he have enough knowledge about Aston Martin’s wind tunnel and its digital wind tunnel? Could he get a correlation? Did he have the right people around him to interpret his talent? That’s suddenly a tall order.

“Adrian told me that he came back after Honda left and we need to catch up. So there are some question marks there, but we’ll wait and see. But you know Adrian has a vision on how to make the most of these regulations.”

Fernando Alonso said on Friday after his first day behind the wheel of the new car that “the car is responding well” and that it was a “huge effort” to drive in Barcelona.

Alonso added: “Some teams have a shoot day and a shakedown in early January and then a whole weekend here in Barcelona, ​​but for us it was just the first day.”

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