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That event starts a packed run of car and livery launches over the coming weeks, driven by an unusually early pre-season. Teams are already going public less than six weeks after the 2025 finale in Abu Dhabi on December is due in large part to the new technical regulations for 2026.
With sweeping changes to both chassis and power units, teams will take part in three pre-season tests rather than the single test of recent years. The first begins at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on January 26, marking F1’s earliest return to on-track running since 2014.
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All 11 teams have scheduled car, livery, or season launches around that Barcelona test, and ahead of the second test in Bahrain from February 11.
Unfortunately for fans, these reveals rarely tell the full story; while the liveries are shown, the car design is never the finished product, with teams only showing off their aerodynamic differences once they arrive at testing. Even then, the cars that line up in Australia on March 8 will still be some way off.
Red Bull and Racing Bulls only featured their 2026 liveries on show cars, not their actual challengers. Over the coming days, there are more car launches on the way:
January 19: Haas (online)
January 20: Audi (Berlin)
January 20: Honda engine launch (Tokyo)
January 22: Mercedes (online)
January 23: Ferrari
January 23: Alpine (Barcelona)
February 3: Williams (online)
February 8: Cadillac (Super Bowl advert)
February 9: McLaren (Bahrain)
February 9: Aston Martin
Haas and Mercedes have both promised first images of their new cars through online reveals, while Ferrari and Alpine may also show early versions of their challengers at their events.
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Online launches allow teams to tightly control what they reveal, limiting angles, lighting, and detail to avoid giving rivals useful information. Audi has already run its new car in a Barcelona shakedown, but the images released from that outing revealed very little.
Given the scale of the regulation changes, there is little incentive for teams to show much more than a basic concept before group testing begins. In any case, the cars are expected to change significantly between their launch versions and the final Bahrain test on February 18-20, just weeks before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in early March.
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