A new Formula 1 Mercedes arrived in Bahrain for testing with the widespread suspicion that it could be the car to beat. But at the end of the morning of the first day, Toto Wolff wanted to dampen the enthusiasm by indicating Red Bull as the reference car at the moment, so much so that he spoke to Sky Italia about an RB22 “with a more complete engine and a faster car”. Alarm or reality? Speaking to journalists during the lunch break, Wolff was more specific and implied that Mercedes is currently quite far behind Red Bull on the topic of energy management. In particular, the long runs showed how Max Verstappen was able to obtain more consistent lap times than the Mercedes. everything is still super preliminary, but obviously this year there is greater attention to what happens on the straight compared to last years where it was mainly about seeing the speeds in the corners. In these first rounds we saw some truly abnormal top differences… pic.twitter.com/sudByPT0LC— Federico Albano (@Fred__18) February 11, 2026
These are Wolff’s words: “Red Bull is able to use much more energy on the straights than all the others. We’re talking about a gain of 1 second per lap, for several consecutive laps. Previously we had seen it on just one lap, now it’s noticeable for 10 consecutive laps, they have the same type of behavior on the straight. They’ve done a great job, they’re the point of reference. And then obviously they have Max in the car, it’s a very strong combination.”
