Ferrari reveals 2026 F1 launch and ‘Spec A’ car plan

Ferrari has revealed their launch plans for their 2026 F1 car.

The Scuderia will unveil their 2026 challenger on 23 January, before completing a shakedown run at their Fiorano test track.

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will give the as yet unnamed 2026 F1 car its on-track debut three days before the first behind closed doors test at Barcelona starts on 26 January.

"This will be aggressive for sure, because we will finish the assembly of the car the day before the launch," Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed at the team’s traditional end-of-year press conference in Maranello.

"The launch will be the 23rd of January in Maranello. It means that we'll finish the car on the 22nd. And this is aggressive, but everybody will do the same.”

Ferrari to start testing with simple concept

Vasseur said that Ferrari will begin testing with a very basic car design and focus on racking up as much mileage as possible across the private test in Barcelona, before worrying about performance later.

According to Vasseur, this approach will be followed by most of the grid.

"I think everybody will do it," he insisted. "In this situation, the most important is to get mileage. It's not to chase performance. It's to get mileage to validate the technical choice on the car in terms of reliability. And then to get performance. It means that I think everybody will come in Barcelona with - not a mule car - but let's say a spec A.

"We are not used to having nine test days anymore. The last four or five seasons, we did three [days]. It's an advantage, but it's also a completely different program. It means that the first target in this kind of season is to get the reliability.

"The first races [of the previous power unit change in 2014] you had a huge percentage of DNFs. It means that 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. Because if you understand something in Bahrain, by the second test, you won't have time to react for Australia.”

2026 and the start of F1’s new rules era will be a huge moment for Ferrari, who slipped from second to fourth in the constructors’ during a wretched and winless 2025 campaign.