New Red Bull driver Isack Hadjar says the Formula 1 team's first in-house engine is performing "way beyond" his expectations and that his gut feeling already is that he can win his first grand prix with the RB22.
Red Bull made an assured start to testing for the new 2026 rules era during the Barcelona 'shakedown week', as while it lost time awaiting new parts owing to Hadjar's sizeable crash towards the end of the second day its new Red Bull-Ford Powertrains engine ran reliably - clocking 107 laps on day one alone in Hadjar's hands.
But it is at the first of two Bahrain tests - the first public running for all 11 teams - where Red Bull has really caught the eye, with rivals making a number of claims about the performance of the RB22 - including Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff suggesting it is one second faster on the straights and Williams driver Alex Albon highlighting both its energy deployment and "strong" driveability.
And Hadjar did little to temper those initial impressions with his first media appearance of testing.
In the first question specifically about his targets for 2026 - his first campaign with the senior Red Bull team - Hadjar said "that first race win is on the radar" and that he would "like to see our car progressing faster than the other teams. I think that would be also very enjoyable".
And he barely attempted to conceal his excitement when asked about the engine's performance.
"It's way beyond what I anticipated," said Hadjar.
"The impression last year towards the end of the season, they were not very positive. Let's say, the rumours, even within the team, they were not completely satisfied and in Barcelona, day one I did like 110 laps straight away.
"So I was very, in a positive way, surprised for a team that started the project three years ago - it's very impressive."
Hadjar added the Barcelona test had expelled the "many, many doubts" he had had "very quickly", even though he expects there to be some issues during the season - "it's normal" - and when asked for his gut feeling about whether he could win, he replied matter-of-factly: "Yeah."
Where Hadjar was most emphatic
Scott Mitchell-Malm
Body language and tone often give away as much as what a driver actually says, and here Hadjar could barely hide his grin.
In fact, there were times where he was positively smirking as he talked about how good different elements of the Red Bull package seems to be.
Now, Hadjar is a pretty straight shooter. So he's quite good for very short, blunt, honest answers.
But at this stage of the season, when you've got massive unknowns in terms of the pecking order and expectations, and no one else wants to go out on a limb, for him to be so flat-out that his gut feeling is this is a package that can win a race, that he can win a race in, for him to be saying that the engine has exceeded expectations, to admit that even internally there were some doubts and that that's not the case anymore, that he had some question marks going to Barcelona and they were eradicated there, and that Red Bull's come to Bahrain and the reliability all seems fine... was quite something.
Want more insight directly from the Bahrain tests? Get exclusive podcasts and videos from Scott, Jon, Edd Straw and the rest of our team in The Race Members' Club. Right now, you can see it all for free by taking out a free 7-day trial here.
Even things such as the behaviour of the engine and how it impacts the car on the downshifts - the aggressive downshifts, with Red Bull being one of the key proponents of going down that extra gear as much as possible and using first gear (Hadjar said he's never used first gear so much in his life) - is an area most would be guarded about. But he was so, so happy to tell us how smooth that downshift process was.
And that is not the case for other drivers, who are having a right old time trying to keep control of other cars.
From trackside, Hadjar didn't look completely on top of it in the way that team-mate Max Verstappen was, but I wouldn't expect that. He did, however, seem to make quite good progress on Thursday afternoon in terms of controlling that rear kick and instability and turning that into good, useable rotation for the corner.
This could all mean nothing by next week, let alone the Melbourne season opener.
But when a driver talks that way, looks that way, sounds that way, and is sort of backed up by some early on-track evidence, it does nothing but raise expectations for what this could achieve and also show just how happy Red Bull is with what it's done to this point and where it's got to.
And it should be said that for Red Bull to seem to be in this position - to be so well-sorted, to be so happy with its progress - is a massive accomplishment, having started everything from scratch.
