Hello, welcome to This Week. We could be at the halfway point, as uncertainty remains about where this season ends and where the next begins, as the US-Iran war continues, but could there be a Plan B with an Iberian doubleheader?
Six years after the first sprint race, could the sport be about to double the number of sprints in 2027? Mercedes explains the cause of Kimi Antonelli’s Silverstone retirement; teammate George Russell says he needs to perform better to stay in the title fight.
But one debate remains: the 2026 regulation fallout,
General News
Next season is set to feature an additional number of Sprint weekends with the sport to reveal its full schedule for next year “very soon”, its president Stefano Domenicali has said. The Sprint marked its fifth anniversary at the British Grand Prix, one of six this season of weekend format.
In a wide-ranging interview with Sky Sports at Silverstone, in which he also provided an update on hopes for the remainder of the 2026 schedule following April’s cancelled races, Domenicali said it made sense to grow the Sprint number again.
Domenicali on the first five years of Sprint, said, “If you remember in the beginning, people were always sceptical of what we’re doing, and I think that we have the duty to be, in a way, brave and to think out of the box. I think you see the effect.”
“With the [150,000] people we had on Friday at Silverstone, if you don’t give something that has an action, it would be wrong. Therefore, I think that this is the way to go, and we are on the process of announcing the bigger number for the future and this will come when we announce the calendar very, very soon.”
It’s understood by some outlets that the number of sprints could increase to nine or ten.
In terms of the overall race calendar for next season, F1 has previously confirmed that the Portuguese Grand Prix and Turkish Grand Prix are returning for 2027. The Dutch Grand Prix drops off after this year, while Barcelona goes into rotation with Belgium and next returns in 2028.
It has been rumoured that it’s Bahrain’s turn to host the season opener; however, uncertainty remains whether this year’s postponed and closing races in the region can be held due to the US-Iran War. Barcelona could host a second race this season and be a standby race for 2027.
Mercedes
Mercedes has said Kimi Antonelli’s retirement last Sunday was caused by a fault with a part of the brake ventilation system. The Italian was challenging Charles Leclerc for the lead with eleven laps to go when he slowed suddenly on the Hangar Straight and reported what he believed to be suspension damage. At that point, he had closed to within five seconds of race leader Charles Leclerc.
He pulled into the pits, where the team had a look around the suspension and changed his tyres before sending him out again. But he would return to the pits again two laps later after feeling no improvement with the car. Those late extra stops resulted him dropping to ninth before a time penalty for
In the team’s regular debrief on YouTube, deputy technical director Simone Resta said, “A lot of you are asking for information about what happened to Kimi’s car in the race It was simply a front brake duct failure of a part of the brake duct that is called the wheel shield. And essentially, ten laps to the end, we had a failure, and the component got loose and started to interact quite a lot with the suspension behaviour and the steering of the car.”
“The car became very, very lazy and almost undriveable. But Kimi was really, really resilient. He wanted to keep the car on track and give himself the best chance to score points.”
“The car, as I said, was very undriveable, and that’s why Kimi went off track a few times. Unfortunately, that cost him a five-second penalty at the end of the race. Very unfortunate on that component, but another strong sign of performance and resilience from our young driver.”
George Russell has admitted he needs to be better if he is going to stay in title contention this season. Having started 2026 as the clear title favourite, Russell has been stunned by the pace of teammate Kimi Antonelli and trails the Italian by twenty-five points at the top of the standings after nine rounds.
Ahead of last weekend, the Englishman admitted that he had suffered bad luck in recent races, but in the Grand Prix, Antonelli tumbled out the points with a braking issue. Which despite mishaps and errors from rivals, to finish second at Silverstone, gaining eighteen points on Antonelli.
Russell said: “The feeling (of the car) was good, but the lap times were slow. And as I said, there were things outside of my control that contributed a lot towards that, and things in my control. I’m still struggling to understand this car.”
“I probably still leave this weekend, albeit extremely grateful to stand on the podium, I leave less satisfied than Canada, when I broke down from the lead. If I want to fight for the championship, the performances need to be better. I need to be better. I need to be working better with my team. We need to be maximising everything.”
Mercedes’ technical issues have allowed Lewis Hamilton to remain in striking distance, with the seven-time world champion just seven points behind Russell in the drivers’ standings after finishing third at Silverstone. Russell added: “We’ve got a close fight now with Ferrari, so it’s not just Kimi and I; Lewis is still very close. It needs to be improved.”
Despite his own technical woes, the Englishman admitted Antonelli has earned his championship lead by doing “a better job” so far this season. Earlier in the year, Russell repeatedly suggested that his points deficit to Antonelli was down to luck, but the Italian’s greater pace in recent weeks appears to have altered the Brit’s perception.
Asked whether he thought Antonelli’s recent misfortune had balanced out luck between the pair, Russell said: “Whether the luck has balanced out or not, I’m not sure. However, based on my performances and based on his performances over the course of these nine races, I think a twenty-five-point gap in his favour is probably correct. He has done a better job than me this year to this point, so he deserves to be ahead of me.”
Red Bull
Red Bull has started an investigation into two rear wing failures which caused Max Verstappen to crash out of the last two Grands Prix, although the four-time world champion immediately stressed that the two failures were caused by different problems.
After his crash in Q3 in Spielberg, the team said it understood the cause of that specific failure. It is all the more concerning that a different rear wing issue emerged at the very next race weekend, one the team had not anticipated.
Red Bull’s rear wing has attracted particular attention because its active aerodynamic system creates the largest opening on the grid. The team introduced its own version of the ‘Macarena wing’ in Miami, though it insisted that the idea didn’t come from Ferrari, which debuted the idea at the Sakhir Test.
Mekies said on Sunday evening when asked about the two separate failures, “We are going to review the full area to make sure we leave zero chance for that to happen again.”
Leaving zero chance of a repeat effectively means that every option remains on the table, including not using the rotating rear wing at Spa.
Red Bull began working on its own concept in November 2025 and originally intended to introduce it in Melbourne. However, the team was not satisfied with it at the time, delaying its debut until Miami. Verstappen described the recent rear wing incidents as “super dangerous”, a concern that becomes even more relevant with the high-speed Spa-Francorchamps, one of his home Grands Prix.
Meanwhile, the FIA has also requested information about the crash, according to Motorsport.com. At this stage, the request is primarily aimed at obtaining additional information to ensure that both teams are fully compliant with all safety requirements while the system is in operation.
Those requirements include, among other things, the maximum transition time of 400 milliseconds within which the rear wing must close. Logically, however, that time limit does not automatically mean that the airflow has fully reattached. The objective at this stage is to engage with Ferrari and Red Bull to review, in light of the recent incidents, whether both teams fully comply with all requirements.
Following this, the governing body could ban the concept, although that is not the objective of the current investigation and is not immediately on the cards at this stage. But at this moment, it appears to be more evidence gathering.
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc has revealed he went on a digital detox to avoid negative comments during his struggles earlier this season. The Monacan won his first Grand Prix since Austin 2024 and finished ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton for the first time since the Japanese Grand Prix in March.
His pace relative to Hamilton this year had raised questions around Leclerc’s performance as he struggled to marry his driving style with the demands of the latest generation of F1 cars.
Leclerc said about his win last weekend, “It means a lot. It means a lot because when things get tough, and that’s literally the situation I’ve been in the last few races, obviously there’s a lot of negativity around me in general, with narratives being created, and it’s never a nice environment to work in.”
“But to keep our heads down and to keep working very hard and get the result that we got today, I’m super proud of the whole team that have been pushing me and helping me to find that feeling again with the car.” Leclerc says that it is only a first step, believing the team needed to prove themselves on multiple circuits, but had confidence last weekend.
Leclerc said he tried to avoid the negative comments around his season, including limiting his exposure to online media. Adding “I think whenever there’s so much negativity around, it’s not something so nice to see. You try to cancel the noise as much as possible, I try to not look at my phone and focus on what is relevant and in order to also have the right picture of the situation.”
We know that in this sport you are only as good as your last result, and we, the media like to follow the overall story of the season where he has been matched or beaten by Hamilton.
Team principal Fred Vasseur says he doesn’t want to hear about the team’s championship chances yet, given the team’s fluctuating performances. Since the start of the European season, the team has won two of the four Grands Prix, which has made many speculate whether they could challenge Mercedes in both championships.
Hamilton came away from his home race just thirty-two points behind Antonelli. In the constructors’ championship, Ferrari has a bigger seventy-eight point deficit to overcome, but still has over half the season to do so. But Vasseur has played down talk of Maranello challenging for both world titles, given the squad was nowhere over a difficult Spielberg weekend, which split its two winning weekends.
On paper relatively similar in profile to Silverstone, it will throw up different challenges for the 2026 power units with its long straights and dramatic energy harvesting requirements
Speaking to Motorsport.com, Vasseur said, “I think Mercedes, honestly, they still have a small advantage on pure performance. If you have a look at the six, seven sessions that we did this weekend, they are probably five times ahead.
“Next week will be another challenge in Spa. Firstly, the weather will be quite a bit different. But we have to start from scratch every single weekend. There is nothing magic. We can’t imagine making a step of five, six tenths in one weekend. It’s just the addition of small gains everywhere that will make the difference.”
Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso has launched another scathing review of the 2026 regulations by claiming no “driver talent” is required after the British Grand Prix. As we often say, this year has seen a radical overhaul to both the chassis and power unit, the latter being the more contentious point.
That’s because F1 edged towards a 50-50 split between electric power and the internal combustion engine, causing a different type of racing with battery management being key. It’s caused a form of racing called ‘yo-yo’ where differing energy levels lead to more overtakes and in places not previously seen, which was on full show last weekend at the high-energy Silverstone.
In Monaco, the two-time champion claimed that the 2026 cars are the “worst” he’d driven. After last weekend’s race, Alonso said, “It depends what the fans and the sport wants. Yesterday I saw replays of the sprint, people overtaking in the middle of the straights with more battery.”
“So there is not any driver input or driver talent needed to overtake a car in front of you. You don’t need to outbrake anyone, you don’t need to overtake on the outside, you don’t need to take any risk. You just press one button, and you overtake if you have a better power unit than the car in front.”
Alonso is the most experienced driver of all time, driving in five different generations of cars since his debut in 2001. Adding “More of the same” could probably be applied to next week’s Belgian Grand Prix as well.”
“Obviously, Silverstone and Spa, they are very trusted on energy,” said Alonso. “You cannot deploy in all on the straights. Next week, it is going to be the same thing. If you deploy in Spa from Turn One to Five, it is finito for the rest of the lap. So, you need to save a little bit there to have deployment from Fourteen to the bus stop [chicane]. But if you deploy in those two straights, which is the optimal deployment, then there is one minute, sector two, with no deployment at all.”
He says that if you deploy all the power in those two straights, which is the optimal deployment, then there is one minute, sector two, with no deployment at all.
Audi
Audi CEO and team principal Mattia Binotto is calling on the FIA to “rethink” the ADUO upgrade scheme after Mercedes was one of the manufacturers afforded room for additional power unit upgrades. Its German rival Mercedes engine is widely regarded as the strongest in 2026, helping the squad win seven out of the first nine Grands Prix.
But because only V6 power is measured to determine which power unit manufacturers qualify for upgrades, Mercedes had been one of the manufacturers allowed to conduct further work on its engines. Red Bull – Ford was determined by the FIA to be the benchmark, locking it out of further improvements beyond the restricted homologation schedule. Though the team disputes this, further reviews haven’t changed the governing body’s findings.
Rival manufacturers have long suspected the likes of Mercedes and Ferrari are holding back the performance of their V6s, whether for reliability reasons or to game the ADUO system. Speaking to Motorsport.com, Binotto therefore feels the upgrade system needs an overhaul.
Binotto explained, “In my opinion, the limit has been that it has exclusively measured performance on the track. A car with an overall advantage can afford not to fully exploit the potential of its power unit.”
“It’s possible, for example, that Mercedes had an engine with superior potential, but had no need to push it to the limit because it already had an advantage thanks to the car. If that were the case, it could have also gained additional development margin.” The aim of the ADUO rules was to allow the gap of new manufacturers to develop and close the gap.
While Audi’s worst fears about its deficit to Mercedes, Ferrari, and Ford haven’t come true they are still off the pace of the front runners, and they are ahead of the struggling Honda. Binotto says he’s not doubting the FIA’s findings, but thinks the ADUO system has strayed too far from its original premise.
Saying “When it was first discussed, the concept was that of a sort of safety net. If a manufacturer was far behind at the start of the regulatory cycle, with regulations virtually frozen and very little room for development, it would risk dragging that disadvantage for five years.”
We are expecting, over the cycle of the regulation, the gap to close in a similar way we saw when a similar system was introduced with Aero in 2022. The other sticking point is that while only the performance of the V6 engine is taken into account to award upgrade tokens, qualifying manufacturers can then overhaul virtually their entire power unit, including hybrid components.
