Formula 1 in 2026 - Paradigm Shifts & World Building
When looking back back through time, the comment is often made that history doesn’t repeat itself - but it does rhyme. Formula 1 enters a brand new era this season, but it’s one that already has echoes back to the past, specifically the last time the sport had a major regulation change back in 2014. With three Grand Prix under our belts now as we head into the previously unscheduled Spring Break period leading to Formula 1’s return for the Miami Grand Prix in May, let’s take a moment to pause and examine what’s happened so far and how it may impact the future, both for the rest of this season and beyond.
Mercedes Dominance
Commenting on the fact that Mercedes are the dominant force so far this year would be as obvious as observing that water is wet. Following four seasons of sub par performances by their own lofty standards, the Silver Arrows are back. George Russell and Kimi Antonelli have won all three Grand Prix in Australia, China and Japan between them. But interestingly, it’s the latter leading the way in the Driver’s Championship, having won his first Grand Prix - the first Italian to do so since Giancarlo Fisichella in Malaysia back in 2006 - and becoming the youngest ever driver to lead the standings in history. After the opening round in Melbourne, we knew that Mercedes would be the force to be reckoned with, for now at least, and we knew that we could expect to see more from Antonelli than last season, but nobody was quite expecting what we’ve seen from the nineteen year old so far in what is only his second season in Formula 1. Despite it being so early in the season still, do we have to consider that Kimi Antonelli is a legitimate contender to become World Champion? From what we’ve witnessed so far, you’d be foolish not to.
That fact is not one that George Russell will be happy to accept. This year marks his eighth in the sport and following both his impressive season in 2025 and his win first time out in Australia this year, many believed that the stars were finally aligning for the British driver to chase after and realise his dream of becoming World Champion. That is, of course, still a very real possibility, but Russell now has to wrestle with the notion that he’ll have to fight his teammate for the Championship much more than he - or anyone else - initially believed. Narratively, it’s a mouth watering prospect that we look set to witness. Russell, a driver who proved himself in the junior series, developed himself as a driver for three seasons at Williams, to then join Mercedes as they fell from grace before helping to build it up again, beating Lewis Hamilton across multiple seasons in the process, is now under threat from someone almost a decade younger than him who’s been the protege of the team boss, as you once were, and who enters the Spring Break leading the Championship, with more wins, podiums, pole positions and fastest laps than you. It’s a vexing position to be in and one that will test Russell in a way that’s never happened before.
For Mercedes though, they have been here before. In 2014, Hamilton and Rosberg won the first three Grand Prix between them and went on to win all but three races that year in total. We saw some excellent battles between the pair of them, such as in the modern classic that was that year’s Bahrain Grand Prix, and it’ll be that style of inter team warfare that Mercedes will want rather than the alternative - a 2016 style season that saw their two dominant drivers at each others throats throughout and leading to disasters for the team such as their opening lap collision at the Spanish Grand Prix.
The car that Mercedes have built too is not perfect. It may be a rocket ship that can bob and weave through its opponents like Rocky Balboa in his prime with an ease that would make both Hamilton and Russell from yesteryear weep with envy, but its start procedure is diabolically bad and gifts other teams and drivers with opportunities at every venue so far to take the win away from them. Mercedes’ time in Formula E for four seasons is surely to have benefitted the outfit when it came to approaching this new regulation set too and it gives them a welcome advantage over their competitors that may help to create a buffer to the rest of the field for if, and when, their drivers focus more on each other than their competition from outside the team. Their engine too is top of the range with whomever is working night and day as the team’s top dyno technician deserving a lot of credit for their work.
Mirroring last year, it appears so far that one team will be the main contender for both Championships. But unlike McLaren, Mercedes have a longer history in recent times of not only how to get to the top, but how to stay there and manage their drivers accordingly. We’re unlikely to see a Mercedes version of Papaya rules this year - but we may yet get something even more dramatic.
Ferrari and McLaren - A Tale of Two Titans
It’s been almost twenty years since Ferrari last won a World Championship with the original Kimi of Formula 1 - Räikkönen. It remains a tall order for the Italian Stallions to rectify that this season but unlike many of the recent years gone by, both they and fans around the world have something that they didn’t before: genuine hope. On the podium in all three Grand Prix so far, twice for Leclerc and once for Hamilton, both team and drivers are not a million miles away in the standings from Mercedes. Gone is the downtrodden Lewis Hamilton from recent times; he’s been replaced with a new, energetic and determined iteration - one very reminiscent of the dominant Hamilton of old. For any of his rivals still racing against him in Formula 1 this year that remember that version of him, the prospect is downright terrifying. For those who never had the pleasure of witnessing that out on track, that terror will come.
Leclerc too seems to have evolved into an even more impressive driver. His overtake alone on George Russell to reclaim third place at the Japanese Grand Prix going into T1 around the outside of the Mercedes driver is testament to that. It was a bold and impressive move that in that instant proved that Leclerc simply wanted the position more and was willing to gamble at a part of the track where we’ve seen numerous large incidents over the years. A resurgent Hamilton as his teammate may have helped mold this latest version of Leclerc too and both he, and Ferrari, are better for it. Their duel in Shanghai - the long awaited sequel to their battle in Qatar in 2024 - put on display just how good both drivers are and how teammates can race one another hard, but fair. McLaren could have done with that demonstration twelve months sooner as it may have helped them with their own issues across the 2025 season. It seems unlikely that Ferrari won’t win multiple Grand Prix this year, one way or another. That potential is gold dust for the Tifosi and if Ferrari can keep developing in the way that they have, perhaps 2027, the twentieth anniversary of Räikkönen’s Championship, will finally be the season that Ferrari can return to the top.
Over at McLaren, the situation is much less peachy. Oscar Piastri summed their situation up rather well on his cooldown lap at the Japanese Grand Prix: “Turns out we're alright once we start.”
Japan marked the first Grand Prix that Piastri was actually able to start this year. A crash on the way to the grid in Australia and technical issues in China prevented him, as well as Norris in the latter, from taking the start of either race. To go from that to leading the Grand Prix in Japan and finishing in second place by the end could perfectly encapsulate what McLaren’s year looks like - as Piastri himself alluded to. If McLaren can sort their technical issues out, they’ll be fighting for podiums and maybe even wins.
But so far, they haven’t been able to do that consistently and that not only leaves them vulnerable to Ferrari ahead of them but the likes of Haas and Alpine who are both worryingly close behind them. Just as Williams jumped ahead of them in 2014, a similar occurrence may happen in 2026 too. Norris finished fifth in both Australia and Japan and is almost two full race wins behind Antonelli already. After two years fighting at the top of the field, this season may be an unwelcome crash back down to Earth for the defending World Champions.
Haas and Alpine in the Ascendancy
It’s not just reverberations from 2014 making themselves known in 2026 - echoes from the beginning of 2022 can also be felt in Formula 1, specifically at Haas. A strong start to the season then, also at the start of a new regulation set, thanks to Kevin Magnussen saw them as the best of the rest early on. Oliver Bearman is the driver primarily responsible for that this time around but Esteban Ocon is also in the mix and is properly motivated both to do his part for the team and to prove to his young teammate that there’s plenty of fight left in him yet. Haas themselves are in a truly unique period of their existence, as we’ve gone into at length elsewhere here at Paddock Influence. Right now, Haas are the best of the rest in fifth place overall and if McLaren continue to have trouble, Haas’ sheer consistency alone may be enough for them to add real insult to injury to the current defending Constructor’s Champions. As we inch nearer to Formula 1’s return in Miami, they’ll be hoping to not repeat the downward trend that followed them at the start of 2022 and that instead, it will have been the start of their ascendancy to the top of the food chain.
One of the biggest shocks so far this season is Alpine. But once you’ve scratched a little beneath the surface, the shock wears off and instead makes much more sense. While the team have built a markedly better car than any of their recent offerings, the bar was low, it’s the hands in which they place it that appears to be making the biggest difference so far. Many jested last season, with the numbers to back themselves up mind you, that Max Verstappen could have been his own Constructor, such was the attribution of Red Bull’s points haul. At the back of the field, the same could be, and was, said of Pierre Gasly who in terms of getting points for the team, was single handedly responsible all year. The same is almost true this season too. Three points finishes places him eighth overall currently with Alpine in fifth, level on points with Red Bull and just two behind TGR Haas. Of the sixteen points to their name, Pierre Gasly is responsible for fifteen of them.
The good news for Franco Colapinto is that after nearly a year in the car, and four times the number of Grand Prix weekends under his belt than Jack Doohan ever got the chance to participate in before he was tossed aside and replaced by the Argentinian, is that he scored the sixteenth point that the team has for this year. It’s his first point ever for Alpine and his first since scoring a single point for Williams back in October 2024 at the Circuit of the Americas. It’s no secret that Colapinto brings a lot of money to Alpine but, unless you’re Lance Stroll, that can only buy you so much time in the sport before a lack of performances in the car outweighs your financial benefit to the team. With a ruthless Team Principal such as Flavio Briatore at the helm, as well as a host of young and eager junior drivers desperate to prove themselves, the clock must surely be well and truly ticking for Colapinto to turn things around. One point will not be enough.
Last year, Pierre Gasly dragged the Alpine into places nobody thought possible and with his rookie status in the sport, Colapinto was under less pressure to perform - despite being touted as someone worth removing Doohan from the team early for. This year though, it’s clear that the Alpine machinery has potential and Gasly has proved that at every outing. Combined with the fact that in the Grand Prix where Colapinto claimed tenth place and that all important point, both McLarens didn’t start, along with Albon and Bortoleto, and Verstappen was forced to retire his car, it makes the thin ice that he’s on appear all the thinner.
Red Bull Vs Racing Bulls
Smooth sailing is also something that Red Bull Racing is not currently experiencing. Three Grand Prix into the new season sees them sitting in sixth place overall, level on points with last year’s last place finisher, Alpine, who have almost scored as many points in these three races than they did in the entirety of last season. To add insult to injury, Red Bull are only two points clear of their sister junior team, Racing Bulls. For an outfit that over the last two decades has been used to not only winning, but dominating over multiple regulation sets, the start of this new era of Formula 1 is so far giving Red Bull a brutal crash course that all good things come to an end.
Off the back of a monumental run of ten consecutive Grand Prix in the second half of last season that saw Verstappen on the podium every time, including six victories, the four-time World Champion is yet to finish higher than sixth. His new teammate, last year’s standout rookie Isack Hadjar, has only finished in the points once, at the Chinese Grand Prix and had to settle for twelfth last time out in Japan. What’s worse is that his former teammate, Liam Lawson, finished ahead of him in both Grand Prix and is only two points away from Verstappen in the overall standings.
F1’s sole rookie for this season meanwhile, Arvid Lindblad, is doing just enough to keep everyone happy. Eighth place in Australia on his debut which included fighting Verstappen hard for position put him firmly on people’s radars that hadn’t paid him much attention before. A similar fight in Japan, this time with Hadjar, was a pleasure to watch and the combination of him and Lawson at the same team - two raw, pure and aggressive racers - is becoming more and more of a spine tingling prospect for the rest of the season. When those two inevitably fight, it’ll be an all or nothing duel that will keep everyone on the edge of their seats. For now, the team looks the strongest that it ever has and there’s a genuine chance that they could finish ahead of the senior team this year. Watch this space.
With the current state of Red Bull, itself still experiencing a rebirth following the shedding over the last few years of almost all of its top personnel, rumours have once again begun to swirl over Verstappen departing the team at the end of the season, either to defect elsewhere or retire from the sport entirely. The partnership with Ford for this new regulation set is not without its issues, which is crucially impacting overall performance. Combined with Verstappen’s current distaste for the style of racing now in Formula 1 and we may see the end of an era this year in the sport, just as another begins. Who would replace him? The answer to that is a Pandora’s Box that could send shockwaves through the paddock in a similar way that Hamilton’s move to Ferrari did. But it’s also worth noting that at the start of last season too, rumours were everywhere of Verstappen leaving after their lacklustre start to proceedings. By the end of the year, the questions never even came to mind as Red Bull turned things around in spectacular fashion. So if one thing is certain here, it’s that nobody should underestimate Red Bull. It doesn’t tend to go well for those that do.
Audi - World Building
The transition from Sauber to Audi was not as simple as a fresh paint scheme and some new stickers. One of automotive’s largest giants essentially had to start from scratch as they built this year’s car, with no handy reference points from previous years. So even with the same key people up and down their team structure, such as Nico Hulkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto and Mattia Binotto, they entered this year as a bit of an unknown. Have Audi set the Formula 1 world alight with their performances so far this year then? No. But they are far more impressive, quietly so, than many a casual observer might give them credit for.
Brazilian rising star Bortoleto is so far responsible for the two points that Audi have this season, collecting them both at the season opener in Australia. On that occasion, a technical issue with the car prevented Hulkenberg from even taking the start. A different issue had the same impact on Bortoleto in China and so Japan was the first Grand Prix that saw both Audi drivers start and complete a Grand Prix. That in itself, is progress. Even though neither driver scored points, both were only just outside the top ten and as an overall operation, look much stronger than teams that one would have thought prior to the season would not have had any trouble being ahead of them - Williams and Aston Martin for example. Even with Jonathan Wheatley’s abrupt departure - another issue explored elsewhere here at Paddock Influence - the impact from the outside of such a move appears to be minimal. Audi are just quietly going about their business, building on an impressive run through pre-season testing and look set to potentially be a dark horse in Formula 1’s near future.
Fallen Giants - Williams and Aston Martin
On the other end of the spectrum are two teams that we didn’t expect to be talking about in this manner - Williams and Aston Martin.
The former has been talking as an entity for years about how important 2026 would be for the team and that they were willing to sacrifice the years prior in order to maximise their chances of taking full advantage of the new regulations and potentially catapulting themselves up the order. Instead, their car is chronically overweight while also suffering from numerous other internal issues. Two points at the Chinese Grand Prix were essentially a merciful gift from the racing Gods because without the four DNS and further three DNFs that occurred there, it’s unlikely they would have received them. Further proof can be seen from their performances in Australia and Japan. In the latter, the team essentially abandoned the Grand Prix when it came to Alex Albon, using the final quarter of it at least as a testing session, pitting him multiple times to learn as much as possible. It’s a fall from grace after a stand out season last year that saw them finish in fifth place overall with multiple podiums achieved on merit. Both Sainz and Albon will want, and deserve, better and the turnaround for the team needs to happen quickly if the team wants to keep both of them for the long term. Spring Break is crucial for them and how they perform afterwards will have consequences that echo not just into the rest of the season but beyond.
Aston Martin fare, somehow, worse. The fact that the amount of time, energy and money that has been poured into this operation since Lawrence Stroll took over has resulted so far in what has occurred in the first three Grand Prix is staggering. Like Williams, they were sacrificing previous seasons so that they could use 2026 as a launch pad to take the team to the top and fight for podiums and wins. Adrian Newey was hired to design the car and Honda were secured as a long term partner. Yet the team’s biggest achievement so far this year is to get only one of their drivers, Fernando Alonso, to simply finish a Grand Prix - and that was achieved with the car being over a lap down. They are multiple seconds off the pace in qualifying (admittedly not the only team) and the car causes vibrations when being driven to the extent that both drivers are worried about nerve damage. Like Williams, it’s been painful to watch so far this season and expectations for what the team can do to turn things around are understandably low.
We all love an underdog story as well as a comeback story. It’s what we desperately want for both of these teams. But right now, any hint of that happening feels like an ambitious pipe dream.
Humble Beginnings - Cadillac
Similar to Audi, there’s not a lot to report from Formula 1’s brand new team. Following years of seemingly never ending red tape to enter the sport, Cadillac haven’t arrived with a bang into the pinnacle of motorsport but rather with a humbling murmur. But that’s not a bad thing. While off the pace and suffering from their own issues when it comes to both understanding and developing the car, there doesn’t appear to be anything fundamentally wrong with the team. They come across as a brand new team that is doing its best and learning as it goes, with the resources, both financial and personnel wise, to build on their foundations. That’s good because that’s exactly what they are.
What is interesting to note though is the difference in approach so far this season of the drivers. Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez have both returned to the sport after a year on the sidelines, having been cast aside by Sauber and Red Bull respectively. A wealth of experience exists between the pair of them and while there was a chance, albeit a slim one, that Cadillac could have had their own Brawn GP moment and come out of the gates as the best team on the grid, it was never really more than a fun thought. Instead, Cadillac has been going about their business and gathering data. Aside from Bottas’s DNF in Australia due to a small technical issue, both cars have both started and, crucially, finished each Grand Prix - more than can be said for many other teams. But while Bottas seems to be keeping his head down and enjoying the fact that he’s back in the sport, the same cannot be said about Perez. Unhappy with the style of racing and disagreeing in public with his Team Principal regarding comments made about his driving, one is left questioning if Perez knows exactly what he signed up for with Cadillac. To make matters more interesting, both drivers have the spectre of Colton Herta looming over them in Formula 2. Cadillac’s Test and Reserve Driver, Herta will replace one of these drivers, either in 2027 or 2028. That’s always been the plan for Herta and both Bottas and Perez know that. When it happens and how, is in part up to them and how they perform, on and off track.
With three Grand Prix behind us in 2026, Formula 1 has already given us plenty to talk about. But how much we can truly say about what to expect for the rest of the season is surprisingly minimal. What we do have is plenty of potential, both in terms of improvements from teams and drivers alike, as well as when it comes to narratives that will hopefully carry us all the way to the season finale in Abu Dhabi (or Las Vegas) and even into 2027. The new regulations are not perfect (more on those to come) but they’ve certainly provided us with intriguing Grand Prix that have been entertaining and different from years gone by. Anything can, and does, happen in Formula 1 and this year, probably for the first time since 2014, it feels like that’s more true than it has been. Let’s see what Miami brings in May.