Hello, welcome to This Week, the first post on a redesigned website. My thanks to Ashley for putting the work in… coming up this week, F1 wins an Oscar, more details about Madrid debut, Red Bull on its worst start to a season in a decade.
Hamilton says he’s “back to his best” after securing his first Grand Prix podium for Ferrari in Shanghai. But the big story this week is the possible shake-ups at Audi and Aston Martin, with Jonathan Wheatley targeted by Aston. Mercedes also appoints its first official deputy CEO and team principal.
General News
The F1 Movie won an Oscar for best sound last weekend at the 98th Academy Awards. The film, directed by Joseph Kosinski and starring Brad Pitt, had four nominations and secured one victory.
The project, starring Pitt as Sonny Hayes, saw a fictional Apex GP added to the paddock as filming was carried out at actual races during the 2023 and 2024 seasons.
Pitt is joined by the likes of Damson Idris and Kerry Condon in a star-studded cast, with the renowned director-producer pairing of Joseph Kosinski and Jerry Bruckheimer in charge behind the cameras. Lewis Hamilton was also a producer on the film, which featured every driver in a cameo appearance.
The seven-time champion was unable to attend the Oscars in Los Angeles as there was not enough time between the Chinese Grand Prix, where he claimed his first Ferrari podium, and the awards.
Madrid joins the calendar as the new home of the Spanish Grand Prix in September, and organisers have revealed images of what parts of the sport’s latest circuit – known as the Madring – will look like.
Five computer renders featuring different sections of the 22-turn layout have been released amid the ongoing construction of the 3.36-mile circuit, which will wind around the site of Madrid’s IFEMA exhibition centre and is located near to the Spanish capital’s airport.
McLaren
Lando Norris’s wax work will be exhibited at London’s Madame Tussauds this summer. The McLaren driver visited waxwork artists earlier this year to match his likeness to the model, with a Madame Tussauds press release saying its team has been “capturing every precise detail, from colour checks to measurements, of the star from head to toe.”
The Englishman has long been a popular figure in F1, and saw his fame rise when he won his first world championship at the end of last year in a close-run battle with Max Verstappen and teammate Oscar Piastri. Norris said, “It’s pretty surreal to think I’ll have a figure in Madame Tussauds, it’s such a big honour.”
“Working with the artists has been awesome, and seeing all the detail they’ve put into the figure is really impressive. I can’t wait for fans to come and see the finished figure in London this summer.”
The waxwork will be displayed alongside existing figures at the London tourist attraction, which include Lewis Hamilton, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mohamed Salah, Mary Earps, Anthony Joshua and Kylian Mbappé as well as the Royal Family.
General manager, Steve Blackburn added, “From the moment we started working with Lando, it was clear we were creating something really special, and our team have been working at full throttle to ensure an exact likeness.”
“He’s been fantastic throughout the process, patiently sitting still and not racing around as usual! We’re busy ensuring his figure is podium-ready and are incredibly excited to welcome guests to meet Lando’s likeness in the coming months.”
Mercedes
Kimi Antonelli revealed that he spoke with Isack Hadjar before last weekend’s Grand Prix, after the Frenchman refused his apology following their clash in Saturday’s sprint.
During the Sprint, Antonelli made a poor start and became stuck in the middle of the pack. Attempting to quickly make up positions on the opening lap, the Italian understeered and made contact with Isack Hadjar at Turn 6, causing damage to the Red Bull.
The stewards swiftly deemed Antonelli responsible for the incident and handed him a ten-second penalty during the sprint. However, the clash did not sit well with the Red Bull driver.
The Frenchman wasn’t impressed with the Italian in the immediate aftermath, telling Canal+, “I don’t understand why he’s so overexcited when he has a rocket and will make his way back up anyway… Well, these things happen.”
By Sunday, however, after a good night’s sleep for everyone involved, the situation appeared to have calmed down. Antonelli himself explained as much in the post-race press conference after securing his first-ever Formula 1 grand prix victory.
Mercedes has appointed Bradley Lord as its deputy team principal to support Toto Wolff. Lord joined Mercedes as communications manager, but more recently as team representative and chief communications officer for the team.
Last season he was in effect ‘team principal’ when Wolff decided to work remotely for a couple of races, wit the team saying this ‘formalise responsibilities that have grown organically over recent years.’
Wolff remains as the chief executive and co-owner of the team, with him saying “Bradley’s work as deputy team principal will further enhance the capability of our leadership group and provide continued support for me as our team principal and CEO.”
“Bradley is a dedicated and long-serving member of our organisation who has played an important part in the team becoming the most successful of the modern era.” I think this is a good move as the team says it splits the job, allowing each to focus on there areas of expertise.
Red Bull
Team principal Laurent Mekies admitted that the RB22 showed “significant shortcomings” at last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix. Following a OK start in Melbourne, having built their own power unit, there are problems with reliability and pace.
The team has had its worst start to the season since 2015, when its relationship with Renault started to break down. Speaking after Sunday’s Shanghai race, which saw Verstappen retire when running sixth and Hadjar finish eighth after an early spin, Mekies said: “We knew that just getting onto the grid in Melbourne with our own PU [Power Unit] was a major achievement in itself and it would have been naive not to expect we would encounter reliability issues.”
“We had to retire Max [on Sunday] because of a coolant fault. However, this was not our only issue, as overall, performance-wise, our package showed some significant shortcomings.”
Verstappen, who has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with the 2026 F1 cars in general, admitted Red Bull’s Shanghai weekend had been “particularly bad” after he failed to score points in both the Sprint and Grand Prix. Both races, the four-time champion made poor starts before struggling with the RB21’s handling and tyre degradation all weekend – describing it as “incredibly tough to drive” and saying that “every lap is a fight”.
He told Sky Sports, “It would help if we just had a normal start also! Every time I’ve dropped to last. A big problem for us is tyre degradation. We are graining a lot, probably more than the people around us. So that’s one thing we need to solve.”
Verstappen admitted it wouldn’t be easy to get on top of the issues, but the team were doing there was not a lot they could do to get the balance right.
Mekies said the five-week gap now after Suzuka, following the cancellation of April’s Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, would allow Red Bull crucial extra time to work through their issues back at base.
Former sporting director and Audi team principal Johnathan Wheatley believes that Verstappen’s criticism of the regulations is partly down to the difficulties Red Bull faced over the first two weekends.
The Dutchman warning have become frustrated with his label for the new formula as “anti-racing” and “Formula E” on steroids. He went further in China, saying, “It’s terrible, if someone likes this, then you really don’t know what racing is about. It’s not fun at all. It’s playing Mario Kart. This is not racing. You are boosting past, then you run out of battery the next straight, they boost past you again. For me, it’s just a joke.”
Wheatley, who knows Verstappen very well from their time together at Red Bull, his former team’s struggles this year with the RB22 play a big part in the four-time world champion’s discontent.
He told Motorsport.com, “If you spoke to the two Ferrari drivers, they said it was a brilliant day. If you can’t win, then if you can just race cleanly… I have to say, it didn’t look to me like any kind of false racing. Each driver had a go at the other. They raced beautifully, cleanly.”
“I enjoyed watching it. There are battles going on in the field that I think are hugely encouraging. I think you can understand Max’s comments, and that’s because of where he finds himself.”
Wheatley says he disagrees with ‘false racing’, pointing to the fight between the Ferraris for third, which he described as cleanly fought, and the battles across the field were encouraging, with Verstappen’s comments down to where he finds himself.
F1 and its governing body, the FIA, are still facing calls to address some of the issues that have cropped up at the start of F1’s divisive new era, including safety concerns over the erratic starts and widespread disgruntlement over the need for drivers to harvest energy even on a qualifying lap.
Wheatley said Audi, which specifically joined F1 because of the new, near-50:50 split between electrical and combustion power, was willing to support the FIA to finetune the regulations over the long April break between the Japanese and Miami grands prix.
Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton says that he is ‘back to his best,’ but there is still “room to improve” after scoring his first Grand Prix podium for Ferrari last weekend in Shanghai. The seven-time winner fended off teammate Charles Leclerc in both the sprint and Grand Prix to finish behind both Mercedes.
This was a relief for Hamilton, who endured the longest wait for a maiden Ferrari podium in history, as well as the longest period in his career, as this was his twenty-sixth grand prix start with the Scuderia.
The seven-time world champion admitted, “I started this voyage, and this dream of moving to Ferrari and being on the top step with them, and this podium has taken longer than I had hoped.”
“After a difficult year last year, to be able to be a part of developing with them, working with them over the past year, gives me huge pride, and it’s such a privilege to be a part of this brand. They provided us a really solid car.”
Asked if he felt as though he was now back to his best after a tricky first year in the Maranello-based squad, he replied, “I definitely feel like I’m back to my best, both mentally and physically, yes.” I think since Barcelona, we have seen a rejuvenated Hamilton, partly because these cars are more suited to the cars he liked driving and won so many championships with Mercedes.
We also know he has a new race engineer, Carlo Santi, though at the moment we don’t know that, as he gets further into his forties, he needs to do more training as well as putting in a lot of work over the short break before testing.
He added, “I do think there’s more to come. I think I can still eke out more performance from this car. I’m still learning about it as I go, particularly with deployment and that. Then on the backside, mid to end of last year, digging deep with the engineers and talking to them about the things that I wanted from a car that I didn’t have any part of developing last year.”
We are at the beginning of the cycle, so there is still a lot for the teams to learn about these cars. The improvement may also be down to Hamilton being able to influence design and development more than last year, and team principal Fred Vasseur is not surprised that the seven-time champions’ performance has improved.
The Frenchman added, “I think it’s always much easier the second [season], because you are part of the project from the beginning; he was in the simulator in the middle of ‘25, when we started the project. I think he feels also a bit more involved into the project than he was one year ago; when he joined the team in January, the car was there.”
Aston Martin
Audi team principal Jonathan Wheatley has been targeted by Aston Martin to lead their troubled team. Aston Martin team owner Lawrence Stroll has made Wheatley an offer to run the race team under managing technical partner Adrian Newey but no contract has yet been signed, insiders have told BBC News.
Wheatley joined Audi only a year ago and has been based at its chassis headquarters in Hinwil in Switzerland. Among the reasons for his desire to move on is said to be the appeal of a return to the UK. However, Wheatley’s existing contract with Audi means it could be some time before he is able to join Aston Martin.
BBC News approached Wheatley for comment, but he was unavailable.
Signing Wheatley would allow Newey to focus his full attention on his main area of expertise, designing the car, and free him up from the other areas that fall under a team principal’s remit.
Newey has been acting CEO and team principal alongside his role as managing technical partner since November 2025 after problems emerged in his relationship with then team principal and chief executive officer Andy Cowell. It was never intended to be a long-term position for Newey.
Cowell, previously Mercedes HPP managing director, is now focusing on helping engine partner Honda resolve problems with its new power unit, which has started the season lacking performance and reliability. It’s understood that Newey vetoed a move to appoint former Red Bull CEO and team principal Christian Horner.
Newey and Horner’s relationship broke down when the latter was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a female colleague. Horner has always denied and was cleared by two external investigations of wrongdoing.
The car is not yet competitive. Newey’s arrival in March last year, combined with problems with their new wind tunnel, has led to its development being delayed but the 67-year-old is confident the chassis can be made competitive over the course of this season.
The bigger problem is the Honda engine, which has suffered major reliability problems and is short on power and energy recovery.
Wheatley’s expected departure amounts to the third management restructure at Audi F1 in less than two years. He had been sharing the job with former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, who had been operating in a dual leadership role, with Binotto primarily overseeing the engine and chassis factories in Germany and Switzerland.
The Italian could be seen as the natural successor having been chief operating and technical officer of the project, since his departure from Ferrari
Haas
Former team principal Guenther Steiner believes that if Esteban Ocon continues in his current form, it will be his last year in the championship. Last weekend the Frenchman was given a ten-second penalty for causing a collision with Alpine’s Franco Colapinto. The Haas driver apologised to Colapinto after the race, claiming, “It’s my fault, I did a mistake, I misjudged it.”
When asked during the ‘Gas or Brake’ segment of The Red Flags Podcast, whether this could be Ocon’s final year in F1, Steiner said, “Gas, full gas. If he continues like this… If he decides to take Colapinto out like he did in China, for sure it is his last year because that’s not even a rookie mistake. That’s just dumb, you know.”
Adding to his woes is that he was outperformed and outscored by his rookie teammate Ollie Bearman by three-points last season. In the opening two Grand Prix and the first sprint, Bearman has scored points at every opportunity with a best place of fifth last Sunday.
In comparison, Ocon sits sixteenth in the standings with zero points after an eleventh finish in Australia, a tenth in the sprint race and a fourteenth finish in the Chinese Grand Prix.
