Martin Brundle warns ‘all bets are off’ for Melbourne opener

F1 2026 is almost here. As the stars head for Melbourne to get this new era underway, Martin Brundle cannot pick a winner.

Brundle decided to put Ferrari in second, and McLaren third behind Mercedes in his pecking order. But, he warns “all bets are off” for Melbourne, a circuit very different to the ones where testing took place in Barcelona and Bahrain.

Martin Brundle says Australian Grand Prix is wide open

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Soon, all the talk of which team is where can stop. In Melbourne, we will get out first look at where the 11 teams all shake out.

But, before then, Sky F1’s Craig Slater and Martin Brundle had been piecing together the pecking order as they believe it stands after the Barcelona and Bahrain tests.

Both had Mercedes at the top of the list.

“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.

“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.

“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.'”

Brundle added that he “was speaking to a team principal yesterday, and he said, ‘We’ve got a completely different floor and rear wing going to Melbourne.'”

And so, despite that pecking order which he put together, based on Barcelona and Bahrain, Brundle believes it is wide open for the first race at Albert Park.

“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.”

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The current odds-on favourite to win the F1 2026 Drivers’ Championship is Mercedes’ George Russell.

Mercedes went into pre-season as the title favourites, its new engine expected to be strong, considering the Silver Arrows’ success when the turbo-hybrid engines arrived.

The events of testing did little to quell the hype around Mercedes, which in turn talked up the first Red Bull Ford engine. Ferrari also turned heads.

Brundle was asked who he believes it favourite to win the Drivers’ title.

“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.”

The Australian Grand Prix race weekend gets underway from 6 March.

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