Pre-season testing is never a perfect indicator of what the grid's pecking order will be, with some teams pushing hard and others holding back.
However, in the fastest lap times, the reliability of the cars and the average pace of race simulations, there are plenty of clues about how the teams are stacking up.
Things will, of course, change as the season goes on and upgrades are introduced, but based on what happened in the tests in Barcelona and Bahrain, this is how they'll most likely rank at the first race of the year, the Australian Grand Prix.
11. Aston Martin
One of the biggest questions heading into the 2026 season has been whether, with a car designed by F1 genius Adrian Newey, 44-year-old Fernando Alonso will have one last chance to finally win a third World Championship. Well, a few weeks out from the first race, we look to already have an answer.
Simply put, testing was a complete and utter disaster for Aston Martin. Plagued by reliability issues stemming largely from their new Honda engine, they covered thousands of kilometres less than each of their competitors, all of whom were also much quicker than them. As a result of that distinct lack of mileage, they're heading into the first race with a car that's still unfamiliar to them, powered by an engine that doesn't even look capable of completing a race.
Alonso remains confident Newey has given him the best chassis on the grid, but that chassis won't do much good if it has an uncompetitive power unit inside it. I do think that Honda will improve their engine enough for the scintillating combination of Newey's design and Alonso's driving to drag the team further up the field later in the year, but they'll almost certainly be starting it at the very back, and not finishing it anywhere near the top.
As was the case during his second spell at McLaren, Alonso's dreams of becoming a triple World Champion look to have been dashed by the Japanese giant. Somehow, I don't think he'll be buying a Honda anytime soon.
10. Cadillac
Being a brand new team that were only given full permission to join the grid a year ago, Cadillac were widely expected to be miles off their competitors in their debut campaign, but they're now looking likely to exceed those low expectations after a successful few weeks of testing.
Despite a few issues here and there, they were able to rack up just under 4000km across testing in the hands of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, far more than Aston Martin and only a few hundred fewer than Williams. They were between the two in terms of pace too, with their fastest lap in Bahrain just under a second slower than Williams' and seven tenths quicker than Aston Martin's.
Their debut season is still fairly likely to end with them bottom of the standings, but based on testing, it won't by any means be the catastrophe that many expected.
9. Williams
Relative to expectations, Williams had the worst pre-season of any team other than Aston Martin. They took longer to get to the track than they would have liked, missing the first test in Barcelona altogether, and didn't look quick once they got there.
Their challenger was at least reliable, completing the fifth most laps of any team in the final Bahrain test, but their fastest lap of that test was slower than those posted by eight of their 10 competitors.
Like Aston Martin, I can see them climbing the order, but they look set to start the season at the bottom of the midfield, which is a huge disappointment given they were top of it last year and focused their development efforts solely on their 2026 car for much of it.
8. RB
I think it's fair to say that RB have the weakest driver pairing on the grid, with all due respect to Liam Lawson and rookie Arvid Lindblad, so they really need to produce a decent car if they want to regularly fight for points in 2026, and they look to have done so.
It looked tricky to drive at times, although that may have had something to do with the fact that it was in the hands of the only rookie on the grid, but it was reliable and showed decent pace, enough to fight for a spot in Q2 and maybe a point or two in Melbourne.
7. Audi
Cadillac have understandably received a huge amount of praise for their pre-season efforts, but I think fellow newcomers Audi deserve just as much, even if they took over an existing team in Sauber and have had years to prepare for their maiden season. After all, as Honda are showing, there are few things more difficult in Formula 1 than building an engine from scratch.
The German manufacturer's power unit ran without too many issues, and they were able to find a good amount of pace across the tests. In terms of both their fastest times and their longer race simulations - which were particularly impressive on the final day - they were right up there with Alpine and Haas at the top of the midfield.
It looks like they'll be fighting those two teams for spots in Q3 and points-scoring finishes in the early rounds, which is a very solid starting point for their ambitious project.
6. Alpine
There's a fairly clear answer in terms of which team looks to have improved the most since last season, with Renault-owned Alpine set to go from the very bottom to the very top of the midfield.
Aided by a Mercedes engine that the French company opted to switch to rather than continue to build their own, they have enjoyed an extremely positive pre-season, boasting the fastest lap by a team other than the four frontrunners in Bahrain and encountering no serious reliability issues.
In the hands of Pierre Gasly in particular, their car looks good enough to score some big points.
5. Haas
The team on the grid with the fewest resources by a good distance, Haas punched about their weight for much of last season, and they look likely to do so to an even greater extent at the start of this one.
Across the pre-season tests, only Mercedes were able to cover more distance than them, and there was barely anything to choose between them and Alpine at the summit of the midfield battle.
Just as I can see Aston Martin and Williams rising, I can see Haas dropping as the year goes on, with the bigger teams likely to out-develop them, but they could hardly have wished for a better start.
4. McLaren
Now this is where things get tricky, because, tantalisingly, there looks to be very little between Formula 1's four biggest and best outfits. The general consensus is that McLaren's car will just about be one of the three best at the start of the season, but I have the reigning champions one place lower.
It always felt likely that they'd be at a slight disadvantage to their rivals as the only one of the frontrunners receiving their engine from a supplier rather than building their own, and that's proved to be the case in testing. They weren't able to manage the energy from their Mercedes engine as well as the works team, and that cost them a bit of pace.
Their understanding of the Mercedes power unit will only improve as time goes by, though, and reigning World Champion Lando Norris seemed comfortable in the car, as did Oscar Piastri, both of whom were able to spend a huge amount of time on track getting to know it. Perhaps the most encouraging sign is that, in the long runs they both completed in Bahrain on Thursday, the Aussie was marginally quicker than Max Verstappen.
That being said, they undoubtedly won't be the dominant force that they were last year, meaning Norris will have to drive better than ever to defend his crown.
3. Red Bull
Red Bull will have left testing as happy as anyone, with the first engine that they've built without any assistance from Honda exceeding all expectations in terms of both speed and reliability.
In the hands of Max Verstappen, the car looked to be the cream of the crop in the opening week in Bahrain, able to handle the new electrical energy system better than any other. So impressive was it that Mercedes confidently stated it was a step ahead of the rest of the field.
However, Verstappen's team dropped off towards the end of testing. Some have speculated that they turned their engine down, perhaps to ease expectations, but it seems more likely that their main rivals simply improved as they began to understand their own cars more and leapfrogged them.
All things considered, they look to be heading down under with the third or fourth best car, and given the Dutchman they have at their disposal, that may well be good enough for them to fight for the win.
2. Ferrari
"This test has confirmed that Ferrari and Mercedes look like the teams to beat. McLaren and Red Bull probably very similar, Ferrari and Mercedes step ahead." Those were the words of McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, and it's hard to disagree.
Ferrari ended testing with the fastest lap time of anyone, courtesy of Charles Leclerc, and by the end of it, they'd got their car to a point where both the Monegasque and - crucially - Lewis Hamilton seemed very comfortable in it. Through both minor tweaks and major innovations - their spinning rear-wing was the talk of the paddock - they got their challenger to a very good place.
That being said, Ferrari tend to show their hand more than their rivals in testing, and their best long run was slightly slower than Mercedes' when you factor in track conditions.
For the first time since 2022, though, the Scuderia look set to have at least one driver fighting for the title.
1. Mercedes
Mercedes entered 2026 as the big favourites after a year or so of talk that they'd nailed the 2026 regulations, and while they didn't look as dominant in testing as many feared, favourites they remain.
The Silver Arrows covered more distance than anyone, and as already mentioned, did the fastest long run relative to track conditions. They're arguably the two most important metrics in pre-season testing, and Toto Wolff's team were top of the class in both.
They didn't set the fastest lap time, but it looked as if they were actively trying to keep their cards close to their chest, shown by the fact that they didn't complete any full race simulations in the final test or run the fastest tyre compounds.
There's a long, long way to go, but right now, it looks like this title is lead driver George Russell's to lose.
Teams with the most distance covered in pre-season testing: 1. Mercedes, 2. Haas, 3. Ferrari, 4. McLaren, 5. Racing Bulls, 6. Alpine, 7. Red Bull, 8. Audi, 9. Williams, 10. Aston Martin
The fastest teams in the final Bahrain test: 1. Ferrari, 2. Mercedes, 3. McLaren, 4. Red Bull, 5. Alpine, 6. Haas, 7. Audi, 8. RB, 9. Williams, 10. Cadillac, 11. Aston Martin
