Long run data from the opening day of Formula 1's final pre-season test in 2026 suggests Mercedes may have decisively reclaimed the 'team to beat' tag.
Claiming so definitively would be premature - given Max Verstappen was absent from the Red Bull and Ferrari had problems in the second session - but the Mercedes W17 looked in strong shape in Kimi Antonelli's hands in the morning and George Russell's hands later on.
Like in the first test in Bahrain, race simulations are being held back until later in the week - expect some on day two and day three. But 'stint-running' was more plentiful than from the same day from the corresponding test last year.
Though track evolution and changeable weather played a part as usual - and there was another timing outage, this time affecting a curious Charles Leclerc run that ultimately wouldn't have changed the picture too much - here is the full lowdown on what the long runs looked like this Wednesday.
The criteria for selection was five or more consecutive flying laps at consistent pace (or seven or more if there were any outliers interrupting), with outliers excluded below.
Morning session averages
1 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m37.260s 5 laps (C3)
2 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m37.650s 9 laps (C3)
3 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m37.702s 9 laps (C3)
4 Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m37.781s 8 laps (C3)
5 Esteban Ocon (Haas) 1m38.693s 6 laps (C3)
6 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m39.040s 12 laps (C3)
7 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) 1m39.896s 11 laps (C3)
8 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) 1m40.040s 8 laps (C3)
9 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m40.062s 9 laps (C2)
10 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m40.141s 8 laps (Pro)
11 Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) 1m40.695s 8 laps (C3)
12 Sergio Perez (Cadillac) 1m41.642s 12 laps (C1)
Afternoon session averages
1 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m36.527s 9 laps (C3)
2 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m36.629s 9 laps (C3)
3 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) 1m36.794s 5 laps (C3)
4 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) 1m36.824s 5 laps (C3)
5 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m37.014s 9 laps (C3)
6 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m37.081s 10 laps (C2)
7 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m37.180s 9 laps (C3)
8 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) 1m37.552s 5 laps (C4)
9 George Russell (Mercedes) 1m37.608s 11 laps (C1)
10 Isack Hadjar (Red Bull) 1m37.661s 5 laps (C4)
11 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) 1m38.035s 8 laps (C3)
12 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) 1m38.046s 9 laps (C2)
13 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 1m38.150s 15 laps (Pro)
14 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) 1m38.159s 7 laps (Pro)
15 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) 1m38.293s 9 laps (C2)
16 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) 1m38.512s 10 laps (C2)
17 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m38.591s 6 laps (C3)
18 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m38.612s 6 laps (C3)
19 Franco Colapinto (Alpine) 1m38.660s 8 laps (C3)
20 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m38.883s 10 laps (C4)
21 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m38.990s 9 laps (C3)
22 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m39.057s 7 laps (C3)
23 Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m39.696s 7 laps (C3)
24 Carlos Sainz (Williams) 1m40.965s 7 laps (C3)
25 Carlos Sainz (Williams) 1m41.260s 8 laps (C3)
26 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) 1m41.342s 10 laps (C1)
A couple of runs here (notably Oscar Piastri's best and Franco Colapinto's best) are seemingly flattered by drivers starting them with a fast flying lap, but this isn't the case for the Mercedes cars.
Particularly in the most representative conditions, across the penultimate and final hour, Russell was the fastest and most consistent on track.
His nine-lap run, the best of the day, featured a best lap of 1m36.077s and all the other ones fitting in between 1m36.4s and 1m36.7s.
Red Bull should like what it saw from Hadjar, more on the C3 than the C4 (which in any case is of dubious value as a long-run tyre). After a largely wasted morning Red Bull put Hadjar on a plan that featured several runs that began with a push lap, then went into cooldown mode, then closed out with five consecutive laps.
Leclerc's five-lap effort from the very start of the day for Ferrari is also quite reasonable, but the sample size there just isn't as robust as it is for Mercedes and its extensive selection of long runs.
Of the other teams, it remains notable that the late-arriving Williams just hasn't done any meaningfully fast long runs across the two Bahrain tests so far, and that Aston Martin still cannot stay on track for long enough to be included in any of our calculations.
