As Formula 1 hurtles toward its 2026 curtain-raiser in Melbourne, one question hangs in the late-summer Australian air: who on earth is going to win? Ask Martin Brundle, and you won’t get a name. You’ll get a shrug – and a warning.
With the paddock heading to the season-opening Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park, Brundle has admitted that trying to pick a victor right now is little more than educated guesswork.
Testing in Barcelona and Bahrain offered clues, yes – but clues are not conclusions.
In conversations with Sky F1 colleague Craig Slater, Brundle attempted to piece together a provisional hierarchy after pre-season running. Both leaned toward Mercedes at the top, with Ferrari and McLaren snapping at their heels.
But certainty? That’s in short supply.
“The top four teams are incredibly close, thankfully, and we’re not quite sure, and it depends which circuit we’re going to and weather conditions and all the usual provisos,” said Brundle.
“I might just put Ferrari second and McLaren third in that one.”
Hardly a ringing declaration. And that’s the point.
F1 2026 ushers in sweeping technical changes – new power units, heavier battery reliance, and revised aerodynamics that must function as a single integrated package. According to Brundle, this isn’t a tweak year. It’s a transformation year.
“What we’re going to see a lot of this year – the biggest in the history of Formula 1 these changes, the power unit, the battery, and you have to change the aerodynamics to go with that as well, you can’t do a bit and then a bit the following year, it works as a package – and we’re going to see some flip-flopping as they bring new parts to each race,” he explained.
“I think every race, more or less, there is going to be a team where we’re like, ‘Oh, hang on. They’re the favourites this weekend.'”
Testing conditions last month only deepened the uncertainty. Barcelona was bitterly cold. Bahrain was hot and abrasive. Melbourne? A completely different challenge.
“We’ve been to Barcelona that was freezing cold, a different kind of race track to Bahrain that was very hot,” said Brundle.
“Now, we’re going to go to Melbourne, totally different circuit layout, so all bets are off, frankly.”
©Ferrari
Development is already accelerating behind the scenes.
“I was speaking to a team principal yesterday, and he said, ‘We’ve got a completely different floor and rear wing going to Melbourne.'”
Even the championship favourite conversation feels premature. George Russell has emerged as the early bookmakers’ pick after Mercedes’ strong testing showing – but Brundle is having none of it.
“I hate guessing, and that’s all it is,” he said. “Because we just don’t know…
“When they roll out in Melbourne, they’ll look different to how they were in Bahrain, same in China and Japan. They’ll have a load more power. Some of them have been sandbagging in the testing, a lot.
“So it’s just a wild guess. I mean, what’s the point.”
And perhaps that’s the real intrigue. In a season promising technical upheaval and competitive volatility, the only safe prediction for Melbourne is unpredictability itself.
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