Esteban Ocon believes Mercedes might be favourite for the 2026 Formula 1 season, while Audi is expected to struggle alongside Cadillac at the back.

Mercedes impressed in the five-day, behind-closed-doors shakedown at Barcelona. The new Silver Arrow completed 500 laps (according to unofficial data) in just three days, with decent pace relative to the competition, and therefore is the first team that comes to mind for the 29-year-old Haas driver.

“I think it’s a bit early to talk about the pecking order, but we’ve seen that Mercedes was very fast over the whole test,” Ocon said.

“We’ve also seen that the Ferrari was in a very good position, the Red Bull was doing well, the McLaren was in the mix too.

“For now, that’s what Barcelona told us; it will be tighter in the group behind – VCARB, Alpine and ourselves – and a little step behind, for now, Audi and Cadillac.

Gabriel Bortoleto, Audi F1 Team

“It’s a bit early to talk about it, we’ll need to see in Bahrain. But for now, that’s what we think is happening.”

Cadillac is a brand-new team, so was always expected to struggle somewhat with its first, Ferrari-powered challenger. Audi, formerly known as Sauber, is a new power unit manufacturer and was hampered by a number of technical issues at the Catalan track – one of which was identified as a hydraulic leak.

Logically, Ocon mentioned neither Aston Martin, which ran for just over one day, nor Williams, which skipped the Barcelona test altogether.

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Despite teething problems on some cars, reliability was much better than feared, which surprised the Frenchman – especially with Haas completing more laps than anyone bar Mercedes and Ferrari. That was despite shaking the new VF-26 down at Fiorano less than two days before the Barcelona test got under way.

“No, definitely not, I was not expecting that,” he added. “I think it was an awesome job, you know, by the whole team.

“First of all, driving in Fiorano [until Saturday evening] and then putting the car down on Monday, to drive at 9am in the morning – I think we exited at like 9:15am, but the car was ready at 9. That was just a crazy effort.

Esteban Ocon, Haas

“I never thought that would have been possible. I thought there would have been some problem on the motorway along the way, that there would be some traffic or whatever, and the car would be late. But, yeah, we were ready at 9am and we did 150-whatever laps [that day]. It was crazy.

“No, I was not expecting that, that it went so smoothly, but it's good, it's very good, because it means that the reliability so far, we have it.

“Day two was a little bit more difficult on Ollie's side, but there are easy things to fix. So we should be on point on that side. And now the next thing, obviously, is to make the car fast, because it's reliable – it's good – but it needs to be fast.”

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