Ferrari locks in date for 2026 F1 car reveal

The Scuderia will launch its new challenger on Friday, January 23, ahead of the first private multi-team test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya later that month.

The car will be revealed at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track, where it will also complete a shakedown on the same day, with the final chassis name to be announced at launch.

The timing underlines Ferrari’s desire to be fully prepared for the sweeping power unit and chassis regulation changes coming in 2026, which represent a clean slate for the Maranello squad after a season to forget.

Ferrari ended 2025 without a race win for the first time since 2021 and for the third time this decade, meaning half of its seasons in the 2020s have now been winless.

It was a particularly stark year on the driver front. Charles Leclerc managed seven podium finishes, but Lewis Hamilton endured the first podium-less season of his F1 career in his debut year with Ferrari.

It also marked the first time since Kimi Raikkonen in 2014 that a Ferrari driver completed a full season without standing on the rostrum.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed the launch date at the team’s end-of-season media briefing and has outlined a cautious early approach for the all-new car.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Scuderia Ferrari HP (@scuderiaferrari)

Ferrari plans to begin running with a basic “Spec A” version focused on reliability rather than outright performance before evolving the package as testing progresses.

“I think everybody will do it,” Vasseur said.

“In this situation, the most important [thing] is to get mileage.

“It’s not to chase performance, it’s to get mileage to validate the technical choice of the car in terms of reliability. Then [after that is] to get performance.

“I think everybody will come to Barcelona with not a mule car, but it’s a, let’s say, ‘Spec A’.”

After its Fiorano shakedown, Ferrari will ship the car directly to Spain for the private Barcelona test starting on January 26, before two further three-day tests in Bahrain ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

Vasseur stressed that maximising early running is critical under the expanded testing schedule.

“We are not used anymore to having nine test days,” he said.

“The last four or five seasons we did three. It’s an advantage, but it’s also a completely different programme.

“It means that the first target in this kind of season is to get the reliability. You remember perfectly the seasons of 10 or 15 years ago, the first races you had a huge percentage of DNFs.”

Ferrari’s conservative early philosophy is shaped by lessons from 2025, when setbacks at the start of the year proved costly.

“What we want to avoid, compared to 2025, is that when we were lost at the beginning of the season with the disqualification [from the Chinese Grand Prix], we lost mileage, we lost reference, and then you are running after this and it’s a long process,” Vasseur said.

“The first focus in Barcelona will be to get mileage with the car to understand the reliability of the car, where we have to improve and what we have to react to.

“If you understand something [only] in Bahrain T02 [the final test], you won’t have time to react for Australia.

“It means that the first target of Barcelona will be to get mileage more than pure performance.”

Ferrari is expecting a rapid development race once the season begins, with Vasseur predicting a more volatile competitive picture than in recent years.

“I’m really convinced that in 2025, the picture of Bahrain T01 [the sole pre-season test] was almost the picture of Abu Dhabi, the last race,” he said.

“Next year, you will have a huge rate of development over the season, and more like 2022 or this kind of season.”

When every F1 team will launch its 2026 car