Hello, welcome to This Grand Prix. Halfway through the season, Kimi Antonelli took another win, but Mercedes’ reliability continues to be a concern. Is Ferrari still there? Could that raise expectations of a title challenge?
Oscar Piastri reaffirms commitment to McLaren amid his being Red Bull’s ‘number one’ target. While Antonelli’s winning teammate George Russell continues his frustrating run of reliability. Hamilton Resurgence Continues as Ferrari Momentum Builds
Weekend Recap
FP1 was topped by Max Verstappen, who set a 47.070 to put himself almost a tenth and a half ahead of the Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton, who was over half a tenth faster than his teammate Charles Leclerc. While Verstappen’s teammate Isack Hadjar was a quarter of a second off his teammate.
FP2 saw Kimi Antonelli fastest with a 45.944, putting himself just under two tenths faster than Lando Norris. Verstappen put his Red Bull third, going three and three-quarters of a tenth faster than Lewis Hamilton, who split the Red Bulls; he was just over a quarter of a second behind Verstappen and ahead of Isack Hadjar by a quarter of a tenth.
FP3 was again topped by Antonelli with a 45.990, going just under a tenth and a half faster than Lando Norris. Verstappen put his Red Bull third, going a hundredth behind Norris and ahead of George Russell by two-tenths. Hamilton was a quarter of a tenth behind his former teammate, but crashed late in the session at Fagnes, damaging his car.
Qualifying saw Antonelli beat Verstappen by just over three tenths to take pole. The championship leader continued his strong weekend, setting a 44.361 to go ahead of the Red Bull. Verstappen out-qualified his fellow half-Belgian Lando Norris by a tenth and a quarter despite the world champion bailing out of his last attempt.
Antonelli took his sixth victory of the season to complete his bounce-back from recent setbacks, finishing nearly two seconds ahead of Leclerc. The Italian looks to take control as his teammate and title rival, Russell, crashed out in a first-lap collision with former teammate Hamilton.
Antonelli had to fight for victory after losing out under a virtual safety car around half distance when he dropped behind Leclerc and Lando Norris. But in ten laps, he found his way past Norris, Lewis Hamilton, and Max Verstappen before getting passed by Leclerc at La Combes with ten laps to go. Over the remaining laps, he pulled a small advantage over Leclerc to secure victory.
McLaren
Oscar Piastri’s manager and broadcaster Mark Webber has shut down rumours surrounding the McLaren driver’s future, labelling them as “nonsense.” The Australian is currently on a multi-year contract that will keep him at the team until at least 2028.
Piastri is seen as the number one target by Red Bull if Max Verstappen decides to quit at the end of the season, as tension grows between the team, Max and his father, Jos Verstappen. According to the Daily Mail, tensions between Red Bull Racing and Max Verstappen’s camp, Webber has made clear that Piastri is contracted with the reigning constructors’ champions for the “foreseeable.”
Webber told Racer, “Oscar is contracted to McLaren for the foreseeable future. Talk of him agitating to leave is nonsense. There has been a lot of fiction written about him and other teams… McLaren have repeatedly said they want him for the long term and Oscar is focused on that.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown was asked about the rumours at the British Grand Prix, to which he confirmed that there would be no driver move coming anytime soon. In the press conference, he said, “They’re rumours. I’m very happy with my two racing drivers, Lando [Norris] and Oscar. I think anytime a name like Max is thrown around, people get pretty excited, a four-time World Champion, but [I’m] very happy with our driver line-up.”
When asked directly if he will be racing for McLaren in 2027, Piastri said, “Yes. I didn’t realise it was a point of contention, but yes.” Expanding on the reports linking Verstappen to his seat, Piastri says McLaren management has been “very reassuring” towards him.
He added, “I’ve obviously seen some of it and heard some of it. For me, I’m very comfortable with where I am and where I sit. Zak and Andrea [Stella] and the whole team have been great through all that, very reassuring.”
Verstappen has made it widely known that he’s unhappy with this year’s regulations and even threatened to quit at the end of 2026. This is also against the backdrop of Red Bull struggling to find performance compared to its rivals Mercedes and Ferrari, and two retirements from the last two races.
Going into the weekend, the team announced a “significant upgrade package” across the upcoming double-header of races in Belgium and Hungary before the summer break. The reigning constructors’ champions have disappointed in their bid for a third championship in a row and are a hundred and fifty-four points behind leaders Mercedes.
The team said: “As part of the MCL40’s development pathway, this weekend will see the introduction of a new rear wing which will be tested and evaluated in Friday’s practice sessions at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
Both MCL40 race cars will also be fitted with a new ICE unit, the third of the season, supplied by Mercedes, which includes some different specifications introduced in order to improve the reliability. Adding “These made their debut with the works team at the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix and then with the other two customer teams at Silverstone.”
McLaren are bringing a new rear wing, but most of their hope for progress appears to be placed on Budapest next weekend. The focus appears to be unlocking as much potential at Spa with technical director for applied engineering, Neil Houldey, warning that the team aren’t “expecting any big change” in performance at Spa.
Mercedes
Following Friday’s practice, Kimi Antonelli believes “there’s still a lot of work to do as a team”, despite the Italian and Mercedes finishing fastest in FP2. Mercedes turned it around after appearing to struggle, after complaining the car was edgy in FP1, after big changes between the sessions.
He said, “We made big changes with the car, and it was a lot better, so that’s a good direction. Of course, there’s still a lot of work to do as a team, as well as with my driving. Was a much better session, and now looking forward to tomorrow.”
Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin admitted that the team had opted for a setup with not enough downforce in FP1, and that “both of [the drivers] found it a bit of a handful in the first session.”
Meanwhile, teammate George Russell found it difficult to find the pace in eighth, over a second off Antonelli, with Shovlin believing that was not representative of where the Englishman was because of “little issues.”
Adding, “You can see a few places where he’s under hit it, and I think with such a tricky first session, it didn’t leave them with great preparation for the second session. There’s plenty we can see that will be relatively easy for him to solve on the data; I’m fairly sure he will be far closer tomorrow, if not a threat.”
Russell was “super frustrated” after issues in qualifying where he could only manage fourth, half a second off Antonelli.
Asked for his feelings when he jumped out of the car, Russell said: “Well, that felt good to be honest. But we’ve just been dealing with an issue with the straight-line speed ever since Silverstone, and we thought we found the problem – changed it, it wasn’t the problem.”
“We thought it was the driving style, and tried different driving styles, it wasn’t the solution. The losses are just astronomical at the moment but, after looking at the data, I feel positive with the job I did. My lap, if you just take the corners, they were very good.”
Russell hasn’t had much luck this season, which, before Antonelli’s recent retirements, had seen the Italian have a huge advantage, and throughout this weekend he has been on the back foot. Struggling with his driving style and the one needed for this generation of cars compared to Antonelli
Antonelli revealed that he felt “lost” in the opening stages of qualifying before turning in a dominant display to take pole position, which he took by just over three tenths, denying Max Verstappen his first pole of the season.
He said after qualifying, “It was a weird qualifying because in Q1 I felt a bit lost, because the wind picked up a little bit and the balance was a bit more on the edge. But then, obviously, the session came to us, and Q3 was good because we did a decent first lap and then, on the second lap, found a lot of time. But, yeah, I feel like the track was cooling down and it was helping us a little bit. It was a good lap, and now we’ll focus on tomorrow.”
We know that after recent races, Antonelli needs to bounce back, having lost two potential wins in the last three races because of reliability. The team has been briefed that they need to turn their pace into results as Ferrari is closing in on them and resolve those reliability issues.
Russell had another retirement, as we said in the Ferrari section, because of the collision with Hamilton. Wolff absolved Russell of any blame for his lap one retirement, explaining that yet another reliability issue had begun his troubles.
Shortly before the accident, the team explained that another battery issue left him with limited power on the Kemmel Straight on lap one, and ultimately saw him turned into the gravel by former team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
Wolff told Sky Sports, “It’s two situations here. First is the racing, the accident that happened. It was unfortunate for us, we lost a lot of constructors’ points and George [lost] drivers’ points. And then we had an issue with all Mercedes engines, where we lacked power on the straight.”
“The impact was that he had more energy available at the beginning of the lap, and then less energy at the end of the lap. But in terms of optimisation, it was a deficit. And we believe that the deficit was about two, two and a half tenths in qualifying modes, much less than on the long runs.”
Mercedes is continuing to have these issues with the power unit issues, Wolff suggesting it’s difficult to explain when the team are still learning about harvesting and deployment. But they could start throwing the championship away if these issues continue.
Red Bull
Williams has signed one of Max Verstappen’s longest-serving engineers, Michael Manning, with the Briton set to reunite with former Red Bull drivers Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz. Manning has been with Red Bull for fifteen years and has most recently been his control engineer.
Manning stepped back from his Red Bull role at the end of the 2024 season, although he remained with the team through the 2025 season before officially making his exit. Announcing it on LinkedIn, he said he would be chief engineer, trackside engineering for Williams.
He wrote, “I’m delighted to share that I’ve begun a new challenge as Atlassian Williams F1 Team’s Chief Engineer – Trackside Engineering. Williams’ engineering heritage is among the most storied in Formula 1. With nine Constructors’ Championships and seven Drivers’ titles to its name, it remains one of the sport’s truly iconic teams.”
“However, it is the ambition for the future that drew me to this role. There is a genuine hunger at Grove to return to the sharp end of the grid, and I am looking forward to ensuring the outstanding work at the factory translates into clinical execution at the circuit.” Manning says he is joining at a significant moment in Williams’ journey
Verstappen refused to answer questions going into the weekend about his future. In recent weeks, there have been reports that his management team held talks with McLaren about a potential future move.
As we know, while he has a contract until 2028, there are several performance clauses that could enable him to leave before then if he wishes. He is enduring a frustrating season, which has only added fuel to speculation which refuses to go away. Asked in the press conference became as much about what he didn’t say as what he did.
Asked if there is any update on his future, Verstappen responded: “No.”
Next, he was asked what he had made of the McLaren rumours, to which he replied: “Nothing.”
Verstappen was then asked if he has a date in mind by which he wants to make a decision by, but was again unmoved, simply saying: “Nope. There’s nothing to say.”
When pressed on whether he will be driving for Red Bull next season, an increasingly irritated Verstappen replied: “Okay, I don’t want to go here and say ‘yes and no’, and this and that about my future. I said already many times that if there was something new, I would say it myself.”
The core story has never really gone away over the last three years, firstly caused by the upheaval following the scandal around Christian Horner, the departures or pending departures of key personnel, or drop in performance.
asking whether he still has confidence in Red Bull to give him the tools he needs, particularly with several recent personnel departures. Verstappen said, “We’re just looking to the future and trying to fix also current issues that we have on the car. But that’s a very open discussion. Yes, sometimes you get a little bit disappointed or upset after a race.”
“And of course, some years you’re just a little bit more competitive than others. But in terms of my approach and how we work as a team, nothing really changes. People come and go. I think that’s sometimes also part of the process, that sometimes you want people to stay potentially, yes. But I think sometimes that’s just how life is, how sport is as well.”
Speaking about loyalty between a driver and team, Verstappen explained: “It’s just the relationship you build over the years. Things that the team does for you, the things that you do for the team. That has always been really good with Red Bull. Of course, from my side, it’s like a second family for me.”
I wonder if this is part of the games we see, as we know Red Bull has reportedly singled out Oscar Piastri as their target if Verstappen leaves; these can also be negotiating tactics. We know Verstappen’s camp was unhappy when the Horner saga was going on and that was followed by a drop in performance; the team are very much in the rebuilding phase.
During FP2, Verstappen was left fuming because of the behaviour of his gearbox. The weekend got off to a good start, topping FP1, but ended FP2 third-fastest, nearly half a second off the pace. While the complaints were nothing new this season, speaking to the media, he said, “I’m always very sensitive to these things because I want to work on that and improve it.”
“I think there was a software upgrade, or downgrade, that it took a bit of time for the shifts to learn basically and then it got a bit better again at the end. Some bits were working well and other times it wasn’t working but overall the car has been in a decent window.”
But warned on Friday evening that he was expected Mercedes to increase the gap at the front, as the energy management.
The team says it removed its version of the ‘Macarena’ rear wing for this weekend because of a “mechanical problem” when the rear wing switched from straight mode to corner mode at the last two rounds, Verstappen crashed out of qualifying at the Red Bull Ring and the Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Technical director Pierre Wache said on Friday, “We’ve fixed it and we are trying to prove that we will improve, and it should be ready for Budapest. After Silverstone it is clear. We looked at the wing, and we know what happened. We know how to fix it. We just need to make sure it is ready and we will improve.”
Asked if the failure was related to the actuator mechanism, Wache replied: “It is part of it, yeah.”
However, when pressed on the specifics of the interaction between the actuator and the rear wing, Wache refused to provide precise details. This was because it would give details about their development plan, but would give safety information to the FIA because it’s a safety issue.
Verstappen qualified second, just over three tenths behind pole sitter Antonelli after teammate Isack Hadjar gave him “a tow and a half”, which he credited with helping him towards his front-row start for tomorrow’s race. Hadjar was used tactically by Red Bull because of a back-of-the-grid penalty for a series of new power unit components.
But the team used him to give Verstappen a tow through the first and final sectors, and they appeared at one point to get it wrong, before a series of new power unit components.
Verstappen explained, “Overall the whole weekend the balance of the car has been quite decent. I think we’re just a bit slow in the straight, but yeah the car has been in the window, just trying to fine-tune a little bit and yeah it was the same in qualifying.”
“At one point we were a bit stuck in terms of how much more lap time you can extract out of it, to be honest, because every lap that I did was a little bit faster, but yeah at one point I mean flat is flat, so there’s no more time to gain in corners. That’s something maybe we have to review; maybe we’re too easy flat, I don’t know.”
On that second lap in Q3 by the exit of Les Combes (Nine) he had gained a tenth and a half, which overall contributed to the three tenths gain over his first lap from the final qualifying stage.
On the second effort, the Frenchman feared that he wasn’t going to be able to give Verstappen full assistance through the final sector, as he’d run out of energy on that occasion.
He added, “What’s difficult is to guess what the engine is going to give you. Because once you stop out of Turn 14 (Campus) and to deliver the power, the engine is a bit confused because you’ve stopped for no reason, and the software is confused.”
Dutch newspaper De Telegraff are reporting that Tom Hart will replace Gianpiero Lambiase as Verstappen’s next F1 race engineer when the Italian joins McLaren. The newspaper, one of the most reliable sources when it comes to the Dutchman, says Red Bull has reached a deal with Hart to take over from Lambiase.
Hart was due to leave the team to join Williams and has been Verstappen’s performance engineer since 2020. he will now stay with Red Bull after all following a dramatic U-turn, with Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies and Williams counterpart James Vowles reaching an agreement to resolve the matter.
Following the race where he finished third, nine seconds behind Charles Leclerc, Verstappen believes that without the VSC he could have challenged the Ferrari for second. The Dutchman had pitted just before the VSC was developed, but Ferrari to capitalise on a cheap pit stop by servicing both its cars, saving Leclerc crucial race time compared to Verstappen.
Ferrari
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur insists there is no “game-changer” behind Lewis Hamilton’s resurgence. The seven-time world champion Hamilton has impressively bounced back from a nightmare debut season with Ferrari in 2026, securing five Grand Prix podiums, including his first Grand Prix victory in nearly two years in Barcelona.
For Hamilton, after a season which was his worst of his career, in which he failed to finish on the podium. However, at the halfway point of this season, he is third in the championship, thirty-two points behind Kimi Antonelli.
Asked what the key to Hamilton’s transformed performances has been, Vasseur told the media at Silverstone: “I think it’s coming from both sides. That we know Lewis more, he knows more the team. That we work on the car from the beginning, because he was there when we started the project a long year ago.”
“Small stone after small stone, it’s not that there is a game-changer; it’s not a one single stone, it’s much more aligned today. The car is probably also better than last year, for sure, and step-by-step we are improving.”
Former teammate turned commentator Jenson Button believes that Hamilton’s return to form is directly linked to the latest generation of F1 cars suiting Hamilton’s driving style. Jenson Button believes his former McLaren team-mate’s return to form is directly linked to the latest generation of F1 cars suiting Hamiton’s driving style.
Button told Sky Sports, “I’m sure over the winter they had time to sit down and discuss what worked for him, what doesn’t work for him. It’s the first year, you know, their relationship, the engineer relationship is always a really tricky one as well.”
“It has to be part of it, but I still think the biggest part of it is just the car. The car suits his style more. It’s a Formula 1 car he’s used to driving in terms of feel. For me, that is way above settling into a team and making them listen. He wasn’t there at Mercedes either the last four years. “
“So, I think it’s down more so to the style of cars. We’re back to a car that’s more natural now. It’s more of a normal Formula 1 car.”
Charles Leclerc believes that the main challenge of 2026 has emerged in attempting to marry his “aggressive” driving style with the demands of the current cars. He says that he made a few changes in his approach over the last weekend in order to get the most out of his Ferrari SF-26, which ultimately led to his first grand prix victory of the season.
Though both Ferrari drivers appear matched, during the first quarter of the season, Leclerc appeared fractionally behind Hamilton, which he put down to the seven-time champion being more naturally suited to the Ferrari.
He said, “I don’t think it’s with the Ferrari itself. I think it’s more with this generation of cars. I’ve got quite an aggressive driving style in general. I think that has been a strength during my career. But then with these cars, sometimes you’ve got to be careful not going the other side because then the dip is quite big.”
“You can start losing quite a lot of performance power unit-wise if you are not efficient, if you don’t go on the throttle in a clean way, if you just don’t do things constantly. Then it starts becoming a bit tricky because you get into very different issues where your speed into the next corner is different and that changes your braking point and you are always re-adapting your references and it makes it very, very difficult.”
Leclerc added that he changed things for Silverstone, but it was only one weekend but they needed to prove themselves and keep that form.
Hamilton finished fourth in FP2 after which he says Ferrari were “lacking a little bit” at times during, but they will be able to make the right changes and close the gap to their competitors overnight.
Hamilton was second in FP1 just under a tenth and a half off Verstappen’s benchmark, while the second Ferrari of Leclerc third. While Hamilton was fourth in FP2, Leclerc struggled significantly more and failed to place inside the top ten after his quickest lap on soft tyres was deleted.
Hamilton said: “Pretty good day in general. Positive, we made steps forward, relatively clean sessions. We made a couple of changes into FP2. The gap seems a bit bigger today, at least in FP2, than anticipated, but hopefully we can try and close that tomorrow. Overall, we generally feel good.”
Asked if he could feel anything as a limitation for the car in that sector, the Briton replied: “It feels a little bit downforce-related, the balance is good in general. You would have more load on the car if you could, but then you need the speed on the straights, so we’ll do a deep dive tonight to figure out how we can pick up that middle sector and not lose hopefully [top speed].”
But it once again looked tight in practice, and Hamilton warned that the rest of the top four teams looked strong. Fred Vasseur warned that Friday’s results won’t necessarily be replicated in Qualifying, leaving the door open for Ferrari to claim a spot at the front once again.
Hamilton had a huge crash at the Fagnes Chicane during final practice, before qualifying sixth just two thousandths behind Leclerc, but both were half a second off pole. The seven-time champion believes the crash in which gave the team a huge rebuild between sessions cost him “a couple of tenths.”
Hamilton ran wide on the exit of the Fagnes Chicane and clipped the right rear of his Ferrari against the barrier in a mirror image of Pierre Gasly’s own shunt at the same corner during Friday practice. Ferrari replaced the suspension, rear wing and floor, as well as making a precautionary gearbox change.
Hamilton, who had been the quicker Ferrari driver heading into qualifying, told Sky Sports, “It did [feel different]. The boys did a mega job to fix my damage after P3. The car was feeling amazing P3, and I really felt confident, not that we’d be fighting for pole because I think Mercedes are too fast.”
“But I definitely think with the car that we had in P3 we probably could have been third or something like that. I was missing a couple of tenths once I got to quali. The car wasn’t identical to what we ended up having in qualifying, but I did the best I could with what I had.”
Pressed on what he was missing in the car, Hamilton responded: “Something wasn’t the same on the rear suspension, so I think in the end the balance wasn’t the same basically.” After a crash like that, it can be difficult to get the exact same set-up going into qualifying, and that might have cost him in both set-up time and confidence, as it’s hard to replicate, but he said the feeling was great.
On his final attempt in Q3, Leclerc had to lift off due to a yellow flag into the final Bus Stop chicane on his last effort, meaning he could only qualify fifth, which became fourth after Lando Norris’ grid penalty. That left him half a second off pole sitter Antonelli, he said, “It is the way it is, I lifted off, and I probably lost a bit of lap time there.
When asked if he could challenge for the podium in Sunday’s race, Leclerc added: “It’s going to be tricky. I think our power unit, we know what we have a slight disadvantage on a track like this, and we’ll have to try and maximise everything and hopefully a podium is possible.”
Hamilton and Vasseur disagreed with the five-second penalty given to the seven-time champion for his collision with George Russell on the opening lap.
The contact eliminated Hamilton’s former team-mate from the race, but was fundamentally caused by the Mercedes power unit apparently suffering an electrical deployment issue through the first sector, causing Russell to lose position to both Ferraris on the run up the hill towards Les Combes.
Vasseur told the media after the race, “I think it’s mega harsh. If you have a look on the corner, Russell had enough space on the left-hand side, it’s not that he was close to the wall. I think it’s more a racing incident for me and this cost us a lot.”
The collision happened as Russell lost position and was trying to regain the position by late braking into the first part of the chicane, and looked as if he had reclaimed a place from Hamilton at least, only for the Ferrari’s front-left wheel to clout his sidepod and tip the Mercedes into a spin.
Hamilton said afterwards, “It was ultimately a difficult weekend. I take all the responsibility for my incident yesterday [when he crashed in FP3], which then had a knock-on effect of the setup not being right, and then out of place in qualifying. Because I think with the setup right, I would have been probably, I think I could have been fifth or third or second.”
“And then, that meant starting further back, and then I was in a position where George obviously looked like he lost power, and then he just swooped around on the outside, and we just sort of had a coming together. I got damaged, and then in the race, I did the best I could with the damage that I had, and then also the penalty. I think it was a racing incident, so I don’t think there should be a penalty for that.”
I think he was unlucky to get the penalty, but the stewards decided that they had to give the penalty because Hamilton was “wholly at fault for the collision” despite the mitigating circumstances. This is consistency which we have wanted, though to me it was harsh and had that happened at La Source, I think it wouldn’t have been penalised.
Russell added, “He didn’t do it on purpose. He was more to blame than I, but he didn’t do anything reckless. That was one of those things. I’m just most angry that I was in that position in the first place. I was in a great position after turn one, and I was ready to fight the two guys ahead of me up to turn five. Instead, I get swamped by three drivers.”
Reflecting on the race, Vasseur admits that Ferrari was “not expecting this kind of result” with Leclerc finishing second and Hamilton just missing out on the podium. They were stronger than we and they expected, given the straight line performance needed on the section between Sixteen and Les Combes (Five-Seven).
Under the VSC pit stop, Leclerc moved up into third before eventually finishing second, nearly two seconds behind race winner Antonelli. Vasseur told F1TV, “I think overall, it’s a very strong result for the team. We were not expecting this kind of result at Silverstone and Spa due to the layout of the track. We had good results. I think overall as a team, we did a good job with execution, good strategy, good pit stop.”
Williams
Team principal James Vowles is determined to keep Carlos Sainz at Williams but accepts it is likely to be 2028 before they could give the Spaniard a race-winning car. Sainz made an equally surprising move after he was replaced by Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, scoring two podiums, in Azerbaijan and Qatar, to raise hopes that the team could battle at the top end of the grid.
2026 has been difficult; they missed the first pre-season test in Barcelona, putting it on the back foot, while the car being overweight has hampered Williams throughout the first nine weekends, with a best finish of eighth. Sainz is out of contract at the end of the season and said ahead of last weekend that he wanted to put thoughts of his future on hold until after the summer break in three weeks.
Vowles told the Press Association, “Carlos and Alex are the two drivers I want in this car. Full stop. No other debate about it. That’s why I made sure he was here. Because what often happens, the way I would describe a lot of problems we have in a lot of businesses, is we have hard workers. But if you don’t know what great looks like, you’re not striving towards great.”
“There’s an expression I really love, which is you can continuously improve a candle, but you won’t get a flashlight to light it. So sometimes you need to actually know what a flashlight looks like to go, ‘I’m going to stop doing this and we’re going better.’”
“Carlos is able to bring that. It’s not friction, not hitting each other against the head and going, ‘I’m not moving, you’re not moving.’ It’s ‘I need to be here, can we get there? I can get there, but here’s the time period for it. Can you deal with that time period’?”
He repeated the team’s targets: winning Grands Prix in 2028 and fighting for championships in 2030. Williams intends to deliver a radical change with a new chassis at the Azerbaijan race in September.
Vowles admits this season has been a challenge but remains excited by the task of trying to lead the illustrious Williams team, nine-time constructors’ champions, back to the top of F1 for the first time in nearly three decades. Many hoped the sport’s drastic new regulations for 2026 would shake up the established order but instead the ‘big four’ have pulled even further away.
Racing Bulls
Arvid Lindblad has announced that he is learning to drive, the British-Swedish driver may be halfway through his debut season, but he is yet to pass his road driving test. despite racing in cars since August 2022, the Briton has failed to gain his licence.
He told Sky Sports, “It is a bit sad that I haven’t got my licence. It was funny for a bit, and now it is just getting a bit silly, so I am working on it.”
The comments followed a conversation on the Up to Speed podcast, where he said: “I haven’t actually had a lesson yet. I did my theory a couple of months ago.” Despite his racing credentials, this did not end well, with Lindblad confirming he failed, “by one.”
Before explaining “I was quite disappointed, especially because I’d started revising only at like 8pm the day before. So, I did like three or four hours of revision, which I thought was enough, because I spoke to my mate and he was just like, ‘Yeah, I just turned up’. I was like, ‘Right, I’ll do a bit of revision, I’ll be fine,’ and I missed by one. I was like ‘urgh! Rage bait!’”
Lindblad went on to have the best qualifying of his career with eighth, giving him “one of the best feelings.” The Englishman has already stood out this season and started from seventh after using the team’s upgrades to good effect, making him once again stand out in his debut season.
Lindblad said, “It was a really good session. You know, from FP1 I felt good with the car. Honestly, it has been on of the best feelings I have had this year, with Barcelona and Canada, and Melbourne.”
“So, I don’t know, the team have done a really good job to give us a good package and yeah, from the beginning of Qualifying I felt good, I felt on it. Even to the point I don’t think we needed to put on a second set in Q2, which is quite an achievement for us.” But he was disappointed because he believes he could have got a better result and pipped Piastri.
Team Principal Alan Permane confirmed earlier in the weekend that Lindblad would be their sole driver to receive a cooling update, which includes a new sidepod, roll hoop, and brake drum, all designed to improve airflow. They appear to be working as Lindblad has been ahead of Lawson at both Silverstone and in qualifying.
Aston Martin
Honda general manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara has suggested that they will introduce an updated power unit on Aston Martins at the Dutch Grand Prix. In their preview ahead of the weekend, he stated there would be “two more races” until the powertrain is upgraded.
This will be key to Aston Martin’s prospects amid a dismal first half of the season, as the green cars have battled only newcomer Cadillac at the back of the field. Fernando Alonso’s solitary point was the consequence of a topsy-turvy Monaco Grand Prix, where he lay just fourteenth with eight laps to go.
Orihara said, “We have two more races before we introduce the new engine. It’s important to keep learning with this current spec, so we can take those energy deployment findings into future races – like Monza, where we also have the long straights.”
Under the ADUO regulations, the Honda power unit has been recognised as the weakest on the grid, meaning it is getting exactly that, upgrade opportunities, and will introduce this update in Zandvoort after the summer break. But in Spa and Budapest, they are expected to struggle after finishing at the back, given the latter being a power-sensitive circuit.
There was also a risk, as always at Spa, of proper wet conditions going into the weekend.
Meanwhile, Aston Martin has openly been focusing its resources on its 2027 car, with the budget cap and aerodynamic testing restrictions making it unlikely that the team could catch up with the midfield this year.
However, it will also bring a B-spec car with a new, lighter chassis and a new gearbox. Asked on Thursday about the positives of the AMR26 in its current configuration, Lance Stroll did not try to hide his frustration: “We can only go forward, so that’s positive. I mean, right now, yeah, it’s been pretty terrible. There’s nothing great, there’s nothing we like about our car, there’s no strengths, so we can only get better.”
Silverstone appeared to highlight this with a mixture of fan footage, on-boards and race feed highlighting Stroll’s struggles with understeer, to the point of turning the steering wheel all the way to the stop in the fast Copse corner.
Stroll said, “We have entry instability and braking in medium-low speed. And then we have this kind of aero stalling, that kind of front-to-floor, front-wing stalling, where we just completely wash out in high-speed corners, so there’s a few limitations”
“Some of these aerodynamic stalls are very hard to see on the pressure taps and where it’s coming from. So I’m just trying to kind of give more of an idea to the guys back in Silverstone that are doing aero and everything, what we’re feeling in the car.”
The team are hoping that next weekend in Budapest, the upgrades improve the characteristics of the car, with better aero and more downforce making it a “healthier car and just a nicer car to drive.”
Asked about a possible link between the lack of power and the car’s understeer, Stroll insisted that the two problems were independent.
Haas
Ollie Bearman says he is “flattered” by speculation linking him to Red Bull amid ongoing uncertainty over Max Verstappen’s future with the team. Verstappen has a Red Bull contract until 2028, but his representatives are understood to have held talks with McLaren in the last month as the four-time world champion weighs up his options for next year.
On Thursday, as reported earlier in this post, the four-time champion refused to give clear answers about his future at Red Bull. Bearman, who is a Ferrari Academy driver, told Sky Sports, “It’s quite flattering to hear things like that, to with a team like Red Bull, who are incredibly successful and to be connected with them in any way, even if it’s just rumours, is very nice. But like I said, it’s just rumours, and I’m fully focused on what I’m doing here with Haas at the moment.”
Bearman has been a Ferrari junior since 2022 and made his debut at the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix for the Scuderia as a replacement for Carlos Sainz, who underwent surgery for appendicitis. He made his full-time debut in 2025, having raced for Haas in Baku and Sao Paulo in 2024. He could be the successor to Lewis Hamilton.
While he doesn’t yet have a contract for 2027, which is unlikely to be resolved until the second Ferrari seat is filled, meaning he is likely to stay at Haas, as Hamilton is likely to renew his contract. He has stated his “ultimate target” is a future Ferrari seat and would rather be at Ferrari over Red Bull, if given the choice but is “waiting in the dark”.
He added, “I don’t have a full, let’s say, say in in that. But Ferrari have trusted me from the very beginning in Formula 3 and put me in that car in 2024 as well. They are really the reason that I’m here right now. At the moment, I’m enjoying what I’m doing with Haas, and the faster I can go now, the easier I make my lie in the future.”
Audi
Audi CEO Mattia Binotto says the German brand wants the series’ future engine formula to remain “highly efficient” amid talk of ditching turbos. Although the new engine regulations only came in this season, there are already discussions about the next set of regulations for 2031.
There is a broad consensus among the six power unit manufacturers over the principle to move to cheaper and simpler V8 engines with a smaller electric component, running on advanced sustainable fuels. Although the finer details are yet to be agreed, with Audi known to be holding out for turbocharging to remain part of the new formula.
Audi uses turbocharging across a wide range of its road cars, with its recently revealed Audi Nuvolari concept car’s twin-turbo V8 engine a hint of its vision for F1’s future engine formula. Binotto told Motorsport.com, “Audi has always supported the importance of efficiency.”
“The technology that allows for highly efficient engines is the same one that is then applied to road cars. When we talk about efficiency, we’re talking about fuel consumption, emissions, and technology transfer between motorsport and series production. The real challenge will be understanding how to design a Formula 1 engine that remains highly efficient but, at the same time, is less complex, lighter, and affordable. This is what we will have to address.”
The idea is that these regulation changes can be in line with the push to net zero, which the sport is targeting by 2030, while trying to bring back the noise of the V10 and V8 eras and attract new independent manufacturers like Cosworth, and retain GM/Cadillac, Ford and Audi`
Having a Cosworth-like off-the-shelf option would also give F1 and the FIA more leverage as they deal with the whims of the car industry, which has led to a complex engine formula for 2026 that has gone through a difficult start.
Binotto added that he is hopeful the sport can find a solution that isn’t just a compromise. Saying, “I think the FIA, as the regulatory body, is rightly called upon to lead this discussion. Formula One needs the manufacturers, just as the manufacturers need Formula One. In the end, as has always been the case, we’ll have to find a solution that isn’t simply a compromise, but the best possible one for everyone.”
Alpine
Pierre Gasly says his crash in FP2 was caused by a snap, which caused him to crash heavily at the second part of the Fagnes chicane, causing him to run out onto the gravel on the exit. Despite attempting to wrestle back control, Gasly was unable to prevent the rear of the car from slamming into the barrier, causing significant damage, with the rear wing and right-rear tyre ripped from the chassis.
He said on Friday evening, “I just need to work on understanding what happened in P2, just had a big snap, lost the car. But yeah, it was a huge snap and by the time I just took a lot longer to recover and by the time it recovered, I was already off the track.”
“I could not get back on track. Not the end of the day we wanted, but I’m sure the guys are going to get it back together for tomorrow, and then we’ll focus on trying to get to the top.”
Managing director Steve Nielsen said: “I think he had a small snap. I think it was Turn Fourteen, which unfortunately put him on the kerb, which then put him into the barrier. It was a small mistake, which on a lot of other tracks would have been fine, but on this track, you get punished for it in certain places, and that’s what happened. But it happens.”
These kinds of things are common at circuits like Spa, which we know are unforgiving of mistakes, and it’s a testament to modern safety. We know accidents can look dramatic, but they have a decent car so he might be able to bounce back.
Cadillac
Sergio Perez says his return with Cadillac was fuelled by a desire to prove he remains “one of the best” in the championship, following a mentally taxing end to his Red Bull tenure. After losing his seat in 2024 with the “toxic” Red Bull team, he returned to the American team for their debut season.
Speaking on the High-Performance podcast, Perez explained, “When the project with Cadillac came, I thought, ‘This is a massive project; this is a massive brand.’ And when I met Dan [Towriss], I knew this guy is very competitive, and he will do whatever it takes to take it to a very good level.”
“It can be my project as well. I can be part of it and I can show myself that I’m one of the best and I want to do that because I always believe that I’m one of the best on the grid. The period at Red Bull takes that confidence from you when you are not delivering, and your teammate is winning and so on. And I always knew what the issues were, but it takes confidence away from you. That’s why I wanted to come back.”
Results Summary
Pole Position |
Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli
Mercedes 01:44.361 |
|||||
Podium |
||||||
Po |
Name |
Nat |
Team |
Time |
Points |
|
| 1 | Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli | ITA | Mercedes | 01:24:22.429 | 25 | |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | MON | Ferrari | +00:01.952 | 18 | |
| 3 | Max Verstappen | NED | Red Bull – Ford RBPT | +00:11.586 | 15 | |
| Fastest
Lap |
Lando Norris | GBR | McLaren – Mercedes | 01:48.890 | ||
Championship Standings
Drivers’ Championship |
Constructors Championship |
|||
Po |
Name |
Points |
Constructor |
Points |
| 1 | Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli | 204 | Mercedes | 358 |
| 2 | Lewis Hamilton | 159 | Ferrari | 285 |
| 3 | George Russell | 154 | McLaren – Mercedes | 195 |
| 4 | Charles Leclerc | 126 | Red Bull – Ford RBPT | 151 |
| 5 | Lando Norris | 102 | Alpine – Mercedes | 61 |
