Hello, welcome to This Week. It was only a matter of time until F1-related names came out from the Epstein Files, and could that lead to questions about the old boys’ club? Lando Norris heads home to North East Somerset to formers school, and we hear the first time this year ‘paypa rules’.
Could Lewis Hamilton be more positive about the new generation of cars, and has the break reenergised him, and Williams launch the FW48. As ever, the stories reflect a sport in constant motion, technically, politically, and personally. A month today, we will know the first race winner of 2026 and the new era…
General News
F1 is to move its London headquarters to a redeveloped office building near the Palace of Westminster, which will be home to three hundred staff. F1 last moved offices in 2017, when the series’ new owner, Liberty Media, traded Bernie Ecclestone’s old Prince’s Gate office for 2 St James’s Market, where it has been renting 21,000 sq ft of space.
The F1 group will move to a nine-story building on Broadway, which has views of St James’s Park, Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament.
F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali said, “We are delighted to bring the headquarters and our brilliant team that are the driving force behind the incredible global sport of Formula 1 to these state-of-the-art offices at 40 Broadway. This is a major statement of our commitment to London and the UK, where nine of the 11 Formula 1 teams are based.”
The 40 Broadway site was last occupied by shopping centre operator Intu, which fell into administration in 2020, and has since been acquired, demolished and redeveloped by Tellon Capital. F1 London property portfolio also includes its logistics, production and technology centre at Biggin Hill Airport.
Michael Schumacher’s first race-winning car, the Benetton B192, has been sold at auction for £4.4m by Broad Arrow Auctions. Schumacher, partnered with Martin Brundle at the time, secured his maiden F1 victory in the B192 at the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
The B192 racked up 11 podium finishes, one win and two fastest laps with both Schumacher and Brundle. With the striking yellow and green livery, the B192 was powered by a Ford 3.5-litre V8 engine, which produced 660-680bhp.
Epstein Files
Former FIA president Jean Todt and Alpine de facto team principal Flavio Briatore have been named in files released by the US Justice Department, following the release of hundreds of files related to Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction for a sex offence. Being named in the documents does not in itself indicate any wrongdoing.
According to emails between Epstein and Todt visited Epstein at the latter’s New York home in 2017. In May of that year, Epstein emailed Todt to say, “Jean, sorry it was so short and Terje did not give me any notice in advance to help with the fun”.
‘Terje’ appears to be Norwegian diplomat Terje Rod-Larsen, who the files show was also in contact with Epstein, and sent a text message to the American saying: “Think it could be useful for you to meet Jean Todt. Sent you his contact info. Call him and invite him for coffee.”
Replying to Epstein, Todt wrote: “It was nice to get to know you through our common friend Terje. Let me know if you come to Paris or Geneva. I will be back in New York in mid-July.”
Todt’s name was first mentioned to Epstein in 2013, when another contact – French diplomat Olivier Colom – emailed him to say: “Going out at Jean Todt tonight. Do you know him? I introduced Terje to him lately. Good man.”
Briatore, now executive adviser and de facto team principal of the Alpine F1 team, also maintained contact with Epstein, according to the files. One email from 2010, sent by a person whose identity is redacted, said: “Flavio Briatore would like to speak with you. He can be reached at his office in London.”
Later the same year, Epstein referred to Briatore as “my Italian friend” in an email chain discussing the potential purchase of an aircraft by Mohamed Al Fayed, the late businessman, friend of Diana, Princess of Wales and Harrods owner, who has been accused of multiple alleged rapes and attempted rapes.
Another email exchange mentioned the former business secretary and US Ambassador Peter Mandelson, who is under investigation for alleged misconduct in public office. The subject was a property in Chelsea, which Epstein was told Briatore wanted to sell.
Also included in the files is former driver Eddie Irvine, who was introduced to Epstein by Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a twenty-year sentence for child sex trafficking and other offences. Irvine has previously admitted attending parties organised by Epstein and Maxwell in New York and Miami, and says he saw Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s accuser, Virginia Giuffre, at one event, but presumed she was about 20.
Irvine said in 2020, “I knew Ghislaine reasonably well. I spoke to her from time to time, and I spoke to [Epstein] from time to time. Ghislaine was always super-sweet and a super-nice lady. When I was around, it was just a normal dinner, just parties. There’d just be a party where some people would turn up and some people wouldn’t. But about that other stuff, I have no idea.”
McLaren
Lando Norris has made a surprise visit to his former primary school in the village of Chew Stoke in North-East Somerset. Norris took part in an assembly and spoke to the children about what motivated him and the importance of being determined when reaching for your goals.
A spokesperson for the school said his visit: “inspired our pupils to aim high, dream big and remember anything is possible.”
The children also had their own scooter racing competition with Norris at the finishing line, congratulating the winners. After answering lots of questions, Norris was given a “classic” Chew Stoke mug and tea-towel as a gift from the school.
Last year, Lando made a video message for the children, thanking the school for supporting his career. His former reception teacher, Angela Perrett, said that even as a four-year-old, Norris “loved racing around with all the other children”.
She taught Norris at Chew Stoke Church School in 2004. Teaching assistant Sue Lewis has told BBC News West that Norris always liked to play with cars, and there is still a box in the class which he used as a ramp.
Chew Stoke Church School said: “We are so incredibly grateful that Lando made a special visit to Chew Stoke today. It is an experience the children and whole school community will not forget.”
Meanwhile, Norris says he is eager to discover how rivals have interpreted the regulation changes, as he claims one must accept when others do “better”. The biggest technical and power unit changes in the sports history could give any team the advantage, with Mercedes/Brawn coming out on top in 2009 and 2014.
Norris, therefore, accepts that something similar may happen again this year and that the innovative design might not come from his McLaren team. He told F1TV, “There’s always that element of looking at others, that’s also just part of the sport, is you look at others, see what other great minds have come up with, what ideas they’ve come up with, see how you can learn from it, incorporate it, avoid it, whatever it may be.”
“You always have to be willing to accept that sometimes people can do a better job and you want to learn from them, so I’m happy with the team’s efforts and everything we’ve done so far this year, but yeah, it’s going to be a long year, so we’ll keep working hard, we’ll make sure everyone’s happy and take it from there.”
Oscar Piastri has backed the team’s finetuned approach to the team’s racing rules, called Paypa Rules, to allow him to compete fairly with Norris, as well as avoiding “causing some headaches for ourselves that we didn’t need.”
Team principal Andrea Stella reaffirmed the team’s commitment to its equal driver policy, although he suggested that after further talks with the drivers, the execution of it would be “streamlined.”
The Italian told Motorsport.com, “There are many things in which you can find ways of doing things better, or, if we can find a way to do the same, but in a simpler way, in a more streamlined way with less work for everyone, then that will be an important improvement for the future.”
Though he didn’t give examples of these situations from last year, some examples stick out. Monza, where it asked Piastri to let Norris pass after a slow pitstop for the Briton, a decision which Piastri strongly disagreed with and one he admitted still lingered on his mind during a disastrous weekend in Baku.
The other is slapping Norris on the wrist for making contact with Piastri in Singapore, only to then undo those private “repercussions” at the next event when Piastri was held more responsible for their sprint race clash in Austin.
In a press conference this week, Piastri said streamlining the team’s racing principles was a “wise decision” and hopes it will avoid some of the distractions from 2025.
Piastri said about the team’s policy, “It will look different. As Andrea said, streamlining it is a wise decision to make. We probably caused some headaches for ourselves that we didn’t need to at points last year. As a general principle and a general kind of way of going racing, it does bring a lot of positives with it, and it’s just about: how do we refine that to try and keep it to just positives, basically.”
Piastri insisted he got a “fair shot” last year and says spending time at home in Australia has helped him reset and bounce back from losing out in the 2025 world championship fight. He also insisted that he had a fair shot at the championship, and he was expecting things to remain the same.
Mercedes
George Russell says he is confident that Mercedes has produced a strong car, but has refused to declare it a title contender. The new power unit and chassis regulations have raised expectations, given the way they dominated the first eight seasons of the previous PU cycle, and enjoyed a strong Barcelona shakedown last week.
It completed the most mileage of any team and Russell’s teammate Kimi Antonelli even conducted a full race simulation, causing engineering director Andrew Shovlin to claim “I don’t think we could have hoped for a better three days of testing”. This has made Russell’s the bookies favourite after the best season of his career.
But he is still wary of his rivals with two official Bahrain tests. Speaking on Monday at the team’s launch, Russell said, “Obviously, we’ve only driven the car for three days, and it’s still very early days, but it doesn’t look like it’s a turd, which is a bonus.”
“To be honest, in the early days like this, you know when it could be a really bad car and you can highlight those negatives early on, we don’t believe it is. But is it a car that can produce a world championship? It’s still way too early to see.”
“We’ve been quite surprised by what we’ve seen from some of our rivals, especially on the Red Bull power unit side, which looks very impressive considering they’re a completely new outfit and reliable as well. So kudos to them. We’ve had a very reliable test, but we’ll have to wait and see if the car lives up to the expectation.”
This is all the normal lines and spin we expect going into the season, I think, from what we are hearing that they haven’t got the same issue as they did with porpoising with them on the backfoot for the whole regulation cycle.
Russell also pointed towards Red Bull not being up to standard and suggested that Ferrari were not quite there yet, but was reliable as they did a decent amount of laps across their power units.
When the title favourite tag was put to the Briton, he said: “I didn’t really feel anything from hearing that, to be honest. As I’ve said for a long time, I feel ready to fight for a world championship, and whether we have that comment above us or not, that does not change my approach one single bit.”
“I’m working so hard with the team. Everybody here has been working flat out to really maximise this new set of regulations, and I’m honestly just so excited by the challenge because it is a huge challenge adapting to these new cars, how the energy management works, the re-harvesting of the batteries, getting your head around the boost system, the overtake modes, the active aero.
Russell also believes that Aston Martin is the team most likely to challenge the top four teams when the season begins. The top four have continued to lead the way over the last decade, with the last victory from outside the top four coming in Budapest in 2021, when Esteban Ocon won for Alpine.
That may change this season with the huge changes to the regulations and the smaller and lighter cars, meaning that predicting the running order is still a guessing game. It is in times like these when a midfield outfit might suddenly jolt to the front and Aston Martin, which finished seventh in 2025, is the team many have their eyes on to do exactly that.
Asked by Motorsport.com, if a multi-team championship fight on its hands? said Russel, “I think the best case scenario from the sport and also for the drivers is that you’ve got a number of different drivers and a number of different teams all battling it out.”
“At the moment, it does look like Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and ourselves are, let’s say, the four teams that are all quite close to one another. But you can’t discount what you’ve seen from Aston Martin and what Adrian has done with that car. It looks pretty spectacular, and Honda, over the past few years, with Red Bull, have had a very good engine beneath them, so we also know what they’re capable of.”
He says it would be “awesome” to see a big fight similar to 2010 when you had McLaren, Ferrari and Red Bull all fighting until the final race in Abu Dhabi. Russell appears more caustic when it came to Aston Martin, who have been one of the most talked about teams.
Saying, “I think the Aston Martin was probably the most standout in terms of the car design. Everybody was looking at that rear suspension, and it obviously visually looks very impressive, but it’s not a competition of how sexy it is. It’s a competition of how fast it goes around the track. So people always look towards the fastest car, and we’ll find that in Melbourne.
CEO and team principal Toto Wolff has criticised rivals for pointing the finger at the legality of Mercedes’ new engine, telling them to instead “just get your s*** together” ahead of the start of the season.
Reports suggest Ferrari, Honda and Audi fear that Mercedes, the pre-season title favourites, and Red Bull, who have produced their own power unit for the first time, may have established a performance advantage through a so-called ‘loophole’ in the regulations.
This argument centres on compression ratio limits amid suggestions from rivals that the two manufacturers may have found a way to deliver a higher limit than what was theoretically imposed by the brand new regulations for 2026. This year, the compression ratio limit has been lowered from 18.0 under the previous ruleset to 16.0, but measurements are only taken when the engine is not running at full temperature.
But with Mercedes confident their engine is legal and complies with the FIA technical regulations, Wolff took aim at rivals’ complaints and conduct around the matter. He said, “I just don’t understand that some teams concentrate more on the others and keep arguing a case that is very clear and transparent. Communication with the FIA was very positive all along. It’s not only on compression ratio, but on other things too.”
“Specifically in that area, it’s very clear what the regulations say. It’s very clear what the standard procedures are on any motors, even outside of Formula 1.”
Mercedes is also comfortable with their position based on conversations with the FIA, Wolff added: “The power unit is legal. The power unit corresponds to how the regulations are written. The power unit corresponds to how the checks are being done.”
Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton’s wealth of experience puts him in the best place to assess the new generation of cars – and he’s enjoying what he is driving so far. The seven-time champion is entering the fifth major regulations overhaul of his career and has often been vocal about which era of car he has preferred to race with, especially after a gruelling experience in the ground-effect period of 2022-25.
Listening to his comments last week and his setting the fastest time of the test, I think from what we heard about the test, the car has been more to his liking, rather than struggling with the stability during the ground effect era. He said, “The car generation is actually a little bit more fun to drive. It’s oversteery and snappy and sliding, but it’s a little bit easier to catch. I would definitely say more enjoyable.”
“But we definitely have work to do to improve, of course, like everybody does. But I think we’ve had great debriefs. Everyone’s really on it. I really feel the winning mentality, like, in every single person in the team, more than ever. So, it’s a positive.” His decision to go out in the wet was surprising, but that may have been influenced by his experience and “very hard” learning curve of his first wet-weather action in a Ferrari, being in last year’s Australian Grand Prix.
As he mentioned, they wouldn’t normally test in the wet but wanted to avoid a repeat of last year and get that experience and knowledge. As well as getting the mileage in, it appears from these early comments by Hamilton are more positive compared to those at the end of last season, and maybe the break and message of hope after the Christmas break.
Later in the week, he spoke about an “incredibly enthusiastic” mood at Ferrari in the build-up to the 2026 season, with the seven-time champion feeling a “winning mentality in every single person more than ever”. Hamilton and Ferrari made a good impression in the first test in Barcelona last week, without major problems.
Hamilton said, “It’s been a really enjoyable week, honestly. I think a huge amount of work over the winter, on my personal side, but what the team have done over the winter to make changes going into the test.”
“To see the mileage that we’ve been able to get the last couple of days due to just so much great work from all the people back at the factory, which I’m really grateful for because having consistency, not having problems…” Looking ahead to Bahrain next week, he suggested that issues were small but expected more problems to emerge.
Hamilton, who endured a difficult first season at Ferrari, went on to ponder what might lie ahead for himself and the team in 2026 – the Briton pointing out that the latest generation of F1 car “is actually a little bit more fun to drive”.
This has become a real trend in the last six weeks, Hamilton is positive and almost reenergised after the winter break
Williams
Williams unveiled their livery for the 2026 car, the FW48, which will hit the track for the first time in Sakhir on Wednesday after the team missed the opening test last week in Barcelona. The livery is predominantly the team’s traditional blue, but there is a twist for 2026 with the sidepods featuring a lighter blue, as part of a new tie-up with the bank Barclays, and white.
The team, despite not really bringing upgrades during last season, had its best finish since 2017 with fifth in the constructors. Giving evidence that the rescue plan and investment by Dorilton Capital, as well as the leadership of James Vowles, are back on their way up.
The introduction of new chassis and power unit regulations for 2026 offers a chance for further progress, but the team’s failure to make it to Barcelona has put them on the back foot.
Their driver line-up of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon is widely considered to be the strongest outside of the ‘big four’ of McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari, which has only heightened expectations going into F1’s new era.
On missing the running in Barcelona, Vowles said: “We have absolutely pushed the boundaries of what we’re doing in certain areas, and one of those is in certain corresponding tests that go with it, but those were only, I would say, a blip in the grand scheme of things.
“They are one item out of quite a few that were pushing us absolutely beyond the limit of what we can achieve in the space of time that we have available to us, so it’s more of an output than anything else – of pushing not just the boundaries of design but the boundaries of just simply how many components can be pushed through the factory in a very short space of time.”
Haas
Jack Doohan has secured a role as reserve driver at Haas after being released by the Alpine team. The son of five-time MotoGP champion Mick Doohan took part in six races for Alpine last year before being replaced by Argentine Franco Colapinto.
Doohan joins Ryo Hirakawa as one of two reserve drivers at Haas. The Japanese driver has connections with technical partner Toyota, which has increased its role to become the title sponsor this year. The team’s race drivers are Ollie Bearman and Esteban Ocon.
He said, “I’m thrilled to be joining TGR Haas F1 Team. It’s the ideal place to continue my Formula One career. I would like to thank the team for giving me the opportunity to grow and take on the great challenge of 2026 together. I’m eager to begin working with the team and collaborating on a successful season.”
The speculation became reality after he failed to score a point in the first six rounds, albeit in an underperforming Alpine car that Colapinto would also fail to score in across the remaining eighteen rounds. Further speculation as the season progressed was that, despite his pedigree and Alpine’s difficulties last year, he wasn’t given a fair opportunity to show his true talent and that he was replaced for the remainder of the season.
Team principal Ayao Komatsu said, “I’m personally very excited to have Jack join us on the team, given the strength of his racing resume and of course, his experience in being a reserve driver in Formula One.”
“The dedication required to remain sharp and prepared to race while getting to know how the team works and so on, it’s challenging for any driver – especially one who’s obviously still very keen to race again at this level.”
Komatsu also said he “expected more” from Esteban Ocon in 2025, with the team boss anticipating that the driver will make “more [of a] contribution” during the upcoming season following talks over the winter. The Frenchman, who was in his eighth full season, was matched by Bearman.
Speaking to the media, he spoke positively about the Frenchman’s approach at the recent Barcelona Shakedown after discussions during the off-season. Komatsu explained, “We’ve had a very good ongoing talk over the winter, preparing for this pre-season, and then we understand each other. He’s totally clear on what our team is expecting of him, and also I’m totally clear on what he needs from the team, so we cleared everything and set everything up before the Barcelona Shakedown, so I’m really happy with that.”
“Then the way he approached the Barcelona test, again, absolutely progressed, so we’re working better together as a team. Esteban and Ollie are working well together – we’ve got to [work] better together to make progress as quickly as possible.” He also say that the feedback from both drivers was very similar, the challenge now was to understand how to use it.
