Mercedes to run new spec in Austin
Mercedes have confirmed Kimi Antonelli and George Russell will both run their latest-specification car at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix. The team’s latest aerodynamic package made its debut at Sepang; only Antonelli ran the upgrades last time out in Singapore, while Russell, who carried a grid penalty for the main race into that weekend, reverted to the pre-Sepang version so the team could compare the two on track.
Antonelli had started the Sprint weekend in Singapore on the back foot compared to Russell, but his competitiveness improved as the event progressed and he finished third in the race, with CEO and team principal Toto Wolff suggesting afterwards that the team were leaning towards running both cars with the new specification in Austin.
Wolff said in the team’s preview for the weekend, “Malaysia and Singapore were difficult weekends for us and we have worked hard to understand where we fell short. Austin gives us an opportunity to respond. We will run our latest update package on both cars as we continue to develop the car.”
“The field is incredibly close, so we need to keep moving forward if we want to fight consistently at the front in the closing stages of the season.”
Despite not challenging for victory in either Malaysia or Singapore, with Max Verstappen taking back-to-back wins for a resurgent Red Bull, Mercedes remain firmly on course to secure a world championship double this year with six rounds of the season left.
Antonelli can secure the drivers’ championship this Sunday if he wins and teammate Russell fails to finish in the top eight and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton is not in the top four, full details later in this post.
Mercedes’ first opportunity to seal the constructors’ title is likely to come next weekend in Mexico City. Wolff says his team will continue to take things one step at a time.
Wolff added, “The United States Grand Prix begins another demanding triple-header. There is plenty at stake, but we won’t get ahead of ourselves. The priority is the weekend in front of us: execute well, maximise our performance and take each race as it comes.”
Mercedes will run a revised livery for the second time in three races in Austin, with blue added to the W17s to highlight the car company’s MANUFAKTUR personalisation programme.
McLaren won’t find a fix this season – Piastri
Oscar Piastri has admitted that his team will likely not find a fix for its problems before the close of the 2026 season. With only six races remaining, the Australian believes the car has reached its limit.
The 2026 regulations have brought drastic changes that several drivers across the grid are struggling to fully understand. He told the media, “I think in the short term, it’s probably as good as it’s going to get. Malaysia was another good step forward in terms of understanding what I need to do to fundamentally bring the car a bit closer to where I would like it to be. I don’t think we’re going to have any magic answers this year.”
Piastri added, “The cars themselves are very different. The tyres are quite different as well, so that’s not going to change anytime soon. I’m definitely making progress, [but] it’s still not as comfortable as I would like.”
The Australian explained that the team’s performances this season were ‘all or nothing’, being fast or struggling. Adding, “I think in the short term, it’s probably as good as it’s going to get. Malaysia was another good step forward in terms of understanding what I need to do to fundamentally bring the car a bit closer to where I would like it to be. I don’t think we’re going to have any magic answers this year.”
The 2026 regulations have brought drastic changes that several drivers across the grid are struggling to fully understand. Piastri added, “The cars themselves are very different. The tyres are quite different as well, so that’s not going to change anytime soon. I’m definitely making progress, [but] it’s still not as comfortable as I would like.”
McLaren bring upgrades to hold off Red Bull
McLaren will introduce further upgrades at the United States Grand Prix as they bid to improve their car’s performance and stave off a resurgent Red Bull in the standings over the remainder of the season. The team are currently third in the Constructors’ Championship with six rounds to go, as things stand
During the last triple header, they failed to score a podium while Red Bull claimed four podiums, including Max Verstappen’s two wins. McLaren’s official pre-Austin preview described the team’s results over the last three events as falling “significantly short of expectations” and that their 33-point haul in that run was “significantly lower than anticipated”.
McLaren now head to Austin this weekend, hoping it will be more suited to the strengths of their car, which will be boosted by some further revisions. Rob Marshall, McLaren’s chief technical officer, said: “We’re bringing a modest selection of upgrades for this event, aimed at improving some braking reliability and performance issues.”
“We also have some small floor changes to test. We have all seen how difficult it is to predict the relative performance of the top teams over the last five or six races.” Marshall pointed out there were many factors at play over recent races, but Austin should be more suited to the car.
Practice will be important to understand the car because of the variety of different corners and straights, allowing hopefully for better correlation. McLaren are hoping, and it is expected, that Austin will be a better circuit for the team, but Marshall warned the team were still learning how best to extract performance from this car.
McLaren’s cause in Singapore was not helped by them losing eight points on the final lap of the Sprint when their cars collided after Lando Norris attempted an overtake on Oscar Piastri. Norris later apologised for the accident, admitting it was an ill-advised move on his teammate at such a late stage of the short-form race.
The world champion said in the team’s Austin preview that “I take responsibility for my mistakes, and I learn from them”.
Verstappen backs Hadjar as successor
Max Verstappen has backed Isack Hadjar to succeed him at Red Bull. The French–Algerian joined the team at the start of the season following an impressive rookie season, and though Red Bull has struggled to find a teammate to match and extract the same kinds of performances as the four-time champion.
With seven weeks remaining this season, Hadjar is eighth with 97 points, having missed three race weekends due to a wrist injury. Speaking to Canal+, Verstappen discussed his teammate; he said, “Isack, he’s still a very young guy. He’s been a part of the Red Bull programme for a while now. Even when he was still not racing in Formula 1, he’s been around to some of the races, listening in and following.”
“I slowly start to feel a little bit old having a younger teammate by quite a few years. But that’s a normal process, and that’s also what, as a team, you should be looking for, right? I’m not going to race forever, and at one point you need new talent coming into the team to try and take over at one point. That’s always been a little bit the way that Red Bull works, finding new talent, and I think that will continue for a long time.”
Asked if Hadjar could take the team leader role when he leaves, that is what Verstappen is hoping, as he is a few years younger.
Last Time Out … Singapore
Practice saw George Russell set a 32.274, going just under two-tenths faster than Charles Leclerc. Leclerc was three-quarters of a tenth ahead of Lando Norris, who managed to split the Ferraris as he went two tenths faster than Lewis Hamilton, while Norris’s McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri was six and a half hundredths behind.
In sprint qualifying, Max Verstappen beat Russell by just under a tenth and a quarter to secure sprint pole. The Dutchman improved by a second and a half from his best time in SQ2, setting a 31.156 to secure his first pole of the season. Russell put his Mercedes six hundredths faster than Leclerc, with the Ferrari driver almost half a tenth ahead of the McLaren’s.
Sprint Verstappen took a two-and-a-half-second victory in an action-packed rain-delayed race. The Red Bull driver finished ahead of the two Ferraris, with Lewis Hamilton finishing fourteen seconds ahead of teammate Charles Leclerc. Antonelli finished fourth, three and a half tenths behind the Ferrari duo, in a race which proved drama-filled from the very start.
GP qualifying, Verstappen took his second pole of the weekend as he beat Leclerc by just over half a tenth. The Dutchman left it late and failed to improve in the final moments of Q3 as the track appeared to fall away as the temperatures cooled down during qualifying. Hamilton had provisional pole, but when on his final attempt he couldn’t find a further improvement and was then beaten by Verstappen and then Leclerc.
Verstappen continued his domination of competitive sessions as he took victory, finishing seven seconds ahead of Antonelli, who is now on the brink of becoming the youngest ever champion at the next race in Austin. Verstappen fended off the Ferrari duo of Leclerc and Hamilton at the start
Hamilton looked like the stronger of the Ferraris, but the team’s decision to go long and try to one-stop the race may have been the right call. But the seven-time champion overruled the team and switched to a two-stop, resulting in him losing position to Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Eventually finishing sixth
Talking Points Austin
Round eighteen brings F1 to Texas to start the final run-in, as Kimi Antonelli has his first opportunity to become F1’s youngest ever world champion on one of the next three Sundays, but it would require something quite dramatic for that to be in Austin.
Though we will explain the various ways Antonelli can win, basically he needs Mercedes teammate George Russell to finish ninth or lower, with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton also finishing fifth or lower. The interesting storyline is going to be how the twenty-year-old handles the pressure of the title being attainable for the first time.
A key factor in determining when Antonelli seals the title could be the performance of his Mercedes car, and more specifically the upgrades that have been brought to it in recent weeks. The Silver Arrows had projected plenty of confidence over the major package they added to the W17 in Malaysia, but it appeared to have a negative impact as they delivered arguably their least performative weekend of the season.
They concluded that Sepang was impacted by a combination of conditions and the track surface, and the unique circumstances in Singapore, as well as their historical weakness. A return to Austin, the last of the season’s traditional circuits before the high-altitude challenges of Mexico City and São Paulo, followed by the streets of Las Vegas, desert and night races in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, should they all go ahead, gives every team a valuable opportunity to gather data and refine concepts for 2027.
Austin is a high-speed and downforce circuit where you tend to see the fastest team come to the front; you normally get plenty of overtaking, so this could be a huge opportunity for the midfield teams to score points. But though we are at a more traditional circuit which hasn’t had such a long break, this weekend could be closer- the challenge of beating each other.
The big conclusion from the last triple header is that Max Verstappen and Red Bull are well and truly back. The four-time world champion had to wait until the sixteenth round of the season for his first Grand Prix victory of 2026, but it was then just seven days before his second came along.
Red Bull has possibly overtaken Ferrari and McLaren in the best-of-the-rest race, which at times this year has fluctuated race-to-race between them; this could put them in pole position as the team to beat in 2027. There is already a growing sense in the paddock that Verstappen could end this year and start next season as the driver to beat.
Ferrari’s championship hopes are in tatters; Lewis Hamilton made an inexplicable decision to ignore Ferrari’s call for him to come into the pits during a Virtual Safety Car period. While stopping would have almost certainly condemned him to finishing behind teammate Charles Leclerc, getting rid of his already worn tyres would have likely sealed a podium finish, or at worst, fourth place.
Amazing how the hype four months ago after the win in Barcelona has led to speculation over a possible breakdown of trust between Hamilton and the Ferrari pit wall, with the 41-year-old having been unhappy with their choices on several other occasions this season.
Lando Norris title defence never really got going, but could come to a mathematical end this weekend, as is the case for Verstappen and Leclerc. But the bigger question for Norris is whether there are any repercussions following his collision with Oscar Piastri in the Singapore Sprint.
He should have had a third in Madrid soon after, with his hugely impressive pace at each of those events leading many to believe McLaren were going to be the team to beat for the remainder of the season. It could have been a very different end to the season if the last four races played out differently.
Instead, the last triple-header saw them drop painfully backwards. Norris didn’t qualify higher than fifth at the three events, and his best result was fourth in Singapore. Norris apologised again in McLaren’s press release ahead of this weekend’s race but there was no mention of any repercussions.
How Kimi Antonelli can win the championship
Kimi Antonelli has the chance to become the youngest champion ever this weekend. The Mercedes driver has a hundred-and-two-point lead over teammate George Russell, with Lewis Hamilton nine further behind in third.
With such a large lead, and with a scheduled six races left in the 2026 season, the world title now looks a formality for the Italian in just his second year of F1 to usurp Sebastian Vettel as the sport’s youngest title winner, aged twenty.
With five Grand Prix remaining and no sprints, there are a hundred and twenty-five points to play for over seven weeks, subject to the situation in the Middle East. To win the title in Austin, Antonelli needs to increase his championship lead by 23 points. To do that, he must win the Grand Prix and then hope both Russell and Hamilton score no points, keeping him within 124 points of going to Mexico.
Though mathematically Max Verstappen (119 points back), Charles Leclerc (125 points back) and Lando Norris (139 points back) remain in contention, they will be knocked out if Antonelli wins in Austin.
Mercedes cannot win the constructors’ title this
Livery watch
Ferrari, Mercedes, Williams, Haas and Aston Martin will all have special livery for the United States Grand Prix, celebrating various partnerships and/or one-off collaborations.
Ferrari’s livery developed with title sponsor HP incorporates sketches, technical drawings and blueprint-inspired graphics, as a visual tribute to the designers, engineers and technicians who work so hard to put a car together. According to Ferrari, the Austin design “puts the development process itself at centre stage, celebrating the work that takes place long before a car reaches the circuit.”
The livery project involved close collaboration between Ferrari and HP specialists, with multiple rounds of testing and refinement to ensure the graphics that will adorn the cars this weekend could be reproduced accurately.
Mercedes has done its livery to promote their customisation ‘MANUFAKTUR’ cross-brand car customisation programme. In addition to their usual silver, black and green colour scheme, flashes of blue will be seen on the car.
Haas has one of the most striking Godzilla liveries as part of a season-long collaboration with TOHO CO., LTD., the Japanese entertainment studio and home of the fictional giant monster. The latest creation – which celebrates the upcoming film release – brings in splashes of light blue and bold patterns.
Williams have gone for the Marvel universe, with Doctor Doom-inspired livery earlier this month as part of a collaboration with Marvel, replacing their usual blue with the villain’s trademark black and green colours.
The car has been displayed as part of an immersive experience celebrating the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday film, with the collaboration bringing together Formula 1 and one of the world’s biggest entertainment franchises.
FIA adamant about Qatar & Abu Dhabi going ahead
Formula 1’s season can and will finish in the Middle East as things stand, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has adamantly declared. Grands Prix are scheduled in Qatar 27 – 29 November, and Abu Dhabi 04 – 06 December, but both are under a cloud of uncertainty and confusion due to ongoing tensions and hostilities in the Middle East.
However, there are reports that the war may resume in early November following the Israeli general election and the US midterms, which could result in cancellation. The mid-October deadline has now passed, and teams haven’t been told where and when this season ends.
Both championships insist that their races are going ahead despite an escalation in the Iran conflict in recent weeks, with Houthi rebels striking numerous civilian targets in nearby Saudi Arabia.
But in a fresh update from Lusail, CEO Abdulaziz Ali Al-Muhannadi said preparations are almost complete for both F1 and MotoGP races. he said in a new statement, “We are looking forward to welcoming the world back to Lusail International Circuit in November for two of the most anticipated events on the international motorsport calendar, just three weeks apart,”
“Our preparations are nearing completion, with our teams focused on ensuring that every aspect of the venue is ready to deliver an exceptional experience for fans, as we do every year. The fan experience remains at the heart of our preparations for every event hosted by Lusail International Circuit.”
Motorsport reported that the teams have been informed they will be racing in Qatar under current advice from the organisers and the government.
Fuel flow meter copyright row
F1’s former fuel flow meter supplier, Sentronics Holdings Ltd, has taken its replacement to court in Texas. The company claims that the sensors now used by every car in the championship infringe its patent.
The British company filed the case against German manufacturer Allengra in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas on 16 October. This comes just days before the United States Grand Prix in Austin. According to the filing, Sentronics has demanded a jury trial and filed two exhibits alongside its complaint.
A fuel flow meter measures how much fuel reaches the engine, allowing the FIA to police the flow limits set out in the technical regulations. The FIA wants to keep an eye on this, because a change in fuel flow means a change in power produced by the internal combustion engine.
Sentronics was the FIA’s exclusive supplier from 2018 to 2025 before Allengra won the contract for 2026 to 2030 in November 2024. Sentronics claims Allengra’s meters infringe its US patent, 11,391,609, which was granted to Sentronics in July 2022.
The patent, titled “Flow meter”, relates to “a method and an associated flow meter for measuring fuel flow rate in a vehicle”. It explains that ultrasonic flow meters work on the principle that “the propagation time of ultrasonic signals travelling through a fluid between two fixed points varies depending on whether the signal travels in the direction of flow or against the direction of flow, with signals propagating more quickly when travelling with the flow”. Sentronics’ method sends pairs of signals in opposite directions and alters their phase to measure the flow.
The complaint says Sentronics’ own laboratory testing in late 2024 confirmed the infringement. It also says Sentronics shared technical details with the FIA under a non-disclosure agreement.
It has also accused Allengra of encouraging the FIA and the teams to use the meters in the United States, including at the races in Austin, Miami and Las Vegas.
Sentronics is now asking the court to permanently ban Allengra from making, selling or supplying the meters in the US. It is also seeking damages for lost profits and royalties dating back to as far as 2022. In fact, it wants those damages tripled because it says the infringement was wilful.
Fornaroli gets two more FP1s with McLaren
Leonardo Fornaroli will return to the wheel of McLaren’s MCL40 over the coming weeks, with his next practice outings being planned for the Mexico City and São Paulo Grands Prix. The Italian took part in FP1 in Barcelona and Budapest, meaning the young Italian will mark the team’s final two mandatory rookie sessions for 2026.
Ahead of those outings Fornaroli, the 2024 F3 and 2025 F2 champion, joined McLaren’s Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) team at the Circuit Paul Ricard last weekend, where he completed almost 350 kilometres on the Grand Prix layout.
His sixth F1 test with the team, Fornaroli focused on longer runs (simulating FP1 sessions) and tried various set-ups aboard McLaren’s 2025 double championship-winning MCL39. Fornaroli said, “I’m really excited to return to the MCL40 and do two more official Free Practice 1 sessions with the team. The Mexico City and São Paulo Grands Prix are two great events, which will challenge me as a driver.”
“Interlagos is a historic circuit with lots of mixed technical corners, and the altitude in Mexico City will definitely be a new physical challenge for me. It’s a great opportunity for my own development, and to also help the team over their weekend.”
McLaren have also announced that Fornaroli will race for their new Hypercar team in the World Endurance Championship (including the 24 Hours of Le Mans) in 2027, while continuing in his F1 reserve driver role.
Slater to make practice debut
Audi junior Freddie Slater will make his practice debut next weekend in Mexico City and a second outing the following weekend in São Paulo. Audi took over the Sauber team ahead of the 2026 season for the German brand’s maiden F1 season, incidentally launching a new driver academy, which has largely rested on Slater’s shoulders.
The Englishman finished as runner-up in F3 and Formula Regional Oceania this season and should make his F2 debut in Bahrain next March, pending the situation in the region.
Ahead of his step up to F2 with Invicta – following in the footsteps of Gabriel Bortoleto, Leonardo Fornaroli and Rafael Camara – Slater will be in action in FP1 at the Mexican and Sao Paulo Grands Prix, helping Audi fulfil the rules’ young-driver requirements. He will replace Bortoleto next weekend and Nico Hulkenberg at Interlagos.
Slater said, “Getting behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car at a Grand Prix weekend is a big moment for me and something I’ve been dreaming of since I was a kid. “I’ve learned a lot this year, and these free practice outings with Audi will be another opportunity to keep gaining on-track experience.”
“Being part of the Audi Driver Development Programme has already given me some incredible opportunities, and I am grateful for their trust and support. I’m really looking forward to getting out on track: my focus will be on doing the best job I can, helping the team with its programme and taking as many learnings as possible from both sessions.”
Audi’s racing director and DDP director Allan McNish added, “These appearances in Mexico and Brazil will give him valuable experience of a Formula 1 race weekend, and another chance to continue his development before he steps up to Formula 2 next season. We are looking forward to seeing him in the R26 and supporting him through these two important FP1 sessions.”
Colton Herta will also be in action in Austin driving Sergio Perez’s car. Austin will mark the Californian’s fourth FP1 session of the year, though his latest, in Monza, was cut short by a suspected hydraulic issue.
He said, “Driving the MAC-26 in front of the American fans at COTA is going to be special. I have great memories at this track – winning my first IndyCar race here back in 2019 was a huge moment in my career, so stepping into an F1 car on this layout feels like coming full circle.”
