When will teams launch their 2026 cars? – Auto Action

December 23, 2025 admin

By Luis Vasconcelos
Date posted: 24 December 2025
With teams just a few days away from shutting down shop for the now mandatory Winter Shutdown period, starting on 24 December and ending on 3 January, everyone’s first 2026 chassis is either already completed and homologated, having passed the mandatory crash tests, or close to completion and due for homologation until next Wednesday.
Homologating a new chassis by passing the mandatory crash tests in the first week of January would imply a huge risk for the teams, for in case of failure, and that’s a common occurrence as everyone wants to have their cars as light as possible to be competitive, there would be the serious possibility of missing out on the first official test session of the year, scheduled to start in 26 January at the Circuit of Catalunya-Barcelona.
Most teams have already announced when they’ll make the official launch of their 2026 cars, and while Cadillac and Aston Martin will show their colours after the Barcelona test and just a few days before the start of the first of the two test sessions in Bahrain, another six teams will conduct their new car launches before putting them on track for the first collective test.
Red Bull and Racing Bulls will conduct the first-ever double-car launch in Detroit to pay tribute to their new partnership with Ford Motor Company on 15 January. In reality, this will be more of a celebration of Ford’s return to Formula 1 after a lengthy break, as the new cars are not expected to travel to Michigan, and the on-display items will be the two cars’ liveries.
Audi will follow the same route: the ceremony scheduled for 20 January in Berlin won’t show us the R26 with Revolut sponsorship; instead, a slightly modified Sauber C45 with the 2026 colour scheme and sponsors will be on display. The new car will only be seen by the other teams at the start of the Barcelona test, held behind closed doors, with images then being supplied to the media and fans by the German team.
The first proper look at the early versions of next year’s cars will come on 23 January and very much like London buses, after you wait a long time for one, three come at the same time. Ferrari, Haas, and Alpine will all launch their 2026 chargers on the same day, with the Italian team doing so in Maranello. The SF-26 will go straight to a first shakedown in Fiorano before being shipped to Barcelona overnight. Alpine will launch the A526 in the Catalan city, while Haas will only do a livery reveal online on the same day.
Then, we’ll have the two most spectacular car launches of next year. Cadillac will use the highly watched Super Bowl halftime show, on 8 February, to do a virtual presentation of its first Formula 1 car, while Aston Martin will show its first Adrian Newey penned car one day later, in Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Riyadh, one day later, the team then heading straight into Bahrain, where the first open test session starts two days later.
For now, Mercedes, McLaren and Williams are yet to announce their plans regarding the launch of their 2026 machines, but all of them are expected to opt for low-profile events, as the priority for next year is to get as much running as possible in the Barcelona test and then focus on performance in the two three-day tests scheduled for Bahrain.
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