Toto Wolff begins F1 mind games with bold Red Bull ‘benchmark’ claim

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has claimed rivals Red Bull have set the early “benchmark” ahead of the 2026 F1 season after the performance of their new power unit at the first pre-season testing session in Bahrain.

Mercedes had secured status as the pre-season favourite after the five-day shakedown event in Barcelona in January, having showed plenty of reliability and outright speed in Spain, though it was their rivals who impressed in Bahrain, with Wolff surmising that their engine had produced the best performance so far.

“I was hoping that they were worse than they are, because they've done a very good job,” said Wolff after the first of three testing sessions this week.

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"The car, the power unit are the benchmark at the moment, I would say. And then obviously you have Max in the car. That combination is strong,” he added.

New regulations around power units have made this pre-season one of the most intriguing in recent years, with Red Bull having partnered with US giant Ford in order to produced its own power unit.

At the same time, both Red Bull and Mercedes have been the subject of complaints from rival engine manufacturers over loopholes they’ve supposedly found, though Wolff has previously dismissed these complaints.

And the Austrian highlighted Red Bull’s “energy deployment” as he emphasised that his long-term rivals were the benchmark at present. "Look at the energy deployment today. They are able to deploy far more energy on the straights than everybody else,” explained the Mercedes team boss.

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"On a single lap we've seen it before, but now we've seen it on 10 consecutive laps with the same kind of straight-line deployment.

"I would say that as of today, which is the first official day of testing – which is always with the caveat of that – they've set the benchmark.”

Testing in Bahrain continues on Thursday, 12 February and Friday, 13 February before another three sessions take place between 18 and 20 February, with the first race of the 2026 F1 season coming on Sunday, 8 March in Melbourne.