Hello and welcome to the first This Week of the year. I think this is a first; we covered all eleven teams this week. For the first working week of the year its felt very busy in terms of news and dates, but that’s to be expected. Two weeks, we hit the track for the first time.
Lando Norris reflects on his maiden championship on his Volg. We have ten of the eleven teams confirmed 2026 launch plans, Isack Hadjar on the challenges and what he sees as benefits to partnering with Max Verstappen and Audi, which becomes the first to hit the track.
General News
Michael Schumacher’s first race-winning car, the Benetton B192, has been listed for auction for an estimated £6.3m. Having started the 1992 F1 season with an updated B191, Benetton introduced the B192 at the fourth round in Barcelona.
Schumacher, partnered with Martin Brundle at the time, secured his maiden grand prix win with the machinery at the Belgian Grand Prix, behind the wheel of the B192 chassis number five. The car took eleven podiums, Schuhmacher’s win and two fastest laps. The striking yellow and green livery, the B192 was powered by a Ford 3.5-litre V8 engine, which produced 660-680bhp.
Brundle reflected on the 1992 season and the Benetton B192 during a feature for Sky Sports in 2022. He remarked in the piece, “Thirty years ago, the 1992 season looked very different to today. There were only sixteen grand prix, but these were contested by sixteen teams, and a total of thirty-nine drivers attempted to qualify for a race.”
“The Williams FW14B was the car to beat, a technical masterpiece which only a lion could tame. Nigel Mansell in red five won nine of the races, and he was world champion by mid-August. Imagine that today. Michael Schumacher and I did our very best to challenge Williams in the relatively basic but highly effective Benetton B192.”
McLaren
Lando Norris would welcome the prospect of having more battles with Lewis Hamilton in 2026, as he backed the seven-time champion to bounce back from his tough first season with Ferrari, where he failed to score a podium in the Grand Prix format for the first time in his career.
With the season ahead posing some unknowns amid the introduction of new technical regulations, Norris hopes to have the opportunity to fight against several of his rivals – including Hamilton.
He told Sky Sports, “We’ve had a good amount of battles already. I would love to race a bit more with Lewis. Obviously, Ferrari struggled a lot more this year than I think everyone was expecting. Lewis has proved himself to be probably the best of all time. Everyone knows if anyone can bounce back from difficult years.”
“It’s Mr Hamilton, and I would love to race against him more. It’s always a privilege that I get to race against someone that is the best in the world. You have got a good amount of those guys. You have Fernando [Alonso], Lewis, Max [Verstappen]. There’s a lot of us that want to climb in the footsteps of these other guys. George [Russell] and Oscar [Piastri] are two of those, and there are so many guys on the grid.”
Meanwhile, in his vlog called Landolog, he reflected on his championship win and receiving the championship trophy in Tashkent. Norris describes the week leading up to the season finale as being “the biggest race of my life,” adding that he “didn’t know how to act” as he readied himself for a minimum third-place finish that would allow him to win the championship, beating Red Bull rival Max Verstappen and teammate Oscar Piastri.
He said, “It’s pretty much every boy’s dream to win something, and when you’re so young, you always hope or dream like you want to win it one day, but you never actually think you can. We did it.”
“The week leading up to the biggest race of my life… and I didn’t know how to be. I didn’t know how to act. I didn’t know how I was meant to be. I didn’t know if I was meant to be really excited or scared. I thought I’d be pretty damn nervous ’cause I do, I mean, I get nervous every race, every qualifying, like always.”
Norris said that the day felt like ‘just another day in the office,’ while knowing ‘this is it and the time had come.’ A month ago, he finished third in Abu Dhabi behind his championship rivals Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri first and second respectively, allowing him to beat them to the championship.
But he says it “felt like a normal race, genuinely felt like a normal race. But two laps to go, and then time starts to slow down a little bit. You start thinking of every little screw, every bolt, every wire. I’m imagining inside my car what everything is doing.”
Adding “All of a sudden, I pictured my mom in the garage. That was the first time, the first moment the whole year, I just about started to realise what was happening – what was about to happen. And all I did was picture the garage, picture my parents there, my brother, my sisters, all in the garage for the final four corners.”
Mercedes
Mercedes has announced they will launch their 2026 car, the W17, on Thursday 22nd January, four days before the first test at the Circuit de Catalunya – Barcelona. The team will release renders of the livery on 22 January before a season launch event on 2 February, which will be available to stream live online. Drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli will be present at the 2 February launch event along with team boss Toto Wolff.
Mercedes is rumoured to be the favourite given their dominance of eight of the eleven seasons during the previous power unit regulations as well as two constructors’ championships with McLaren. While Wolff hopes to replicate the success seen in the previous hybrid era, he downplayed the hype from fans.
He said, “Well, I would very much hope so, but I’m a notorious pessimist, and the glass is always half empty rather than half full,” the Mercedes team chief explained during a Mercedes debrief video after the 2025 season. We’ve set ourselves targets on the power unit and the same on the chassis.”
“Whether those targets were ambitious enough, whether we have missed the trick… whether our execution is going to be as faultless as it should be? I don’t know. We’re going to see some glimpses of performance balance in testing late in January and then in Bahrain. But I think the name of the game is going to be the constant development of the tools throughout the season.”
Red Bull
Isack Hadjar has given insight into what excites him as he heads into his second season following his promotion to Red Bull to partner Max Verstappen. The Frenchman earned promotion following an impressive rookie season with Racing Bulls.
When asked what excites him the most about his new chapter, he told F1.com, “Honestly, there’s two things. [One is] being in a world champion team. When I grew up watching Formula 1, I saw Vettel winning all these races, as a kid, with Red Bull, a And [the second thing is] being teammates with Max, to see what it’s like, what facing the best level in the world feels like. It’s definitely super exciting.”
Elaborating further on what he admires about Verstappen, Hadjar said: “What I find very impressive with Max is that, after four World Championships, he’s still very hungry, and very mad when it doesn’t go his way because he always wants to win. I don’t think every champion can do that; once you’ve passed a certain level, you can maybe slow down a bit in your approach, but he seems to be starting just like I am, so it’s very impressive.”
Ferrari
Team principal Fred Vasseur says “pure performance” is quite irrelevant at the first pre-season test because of the regulation changes. This season sees changes to the power unit, chassis and aero regulations, which will be explained in the next Behind The Headlines, designed to make the cars more nimble.
With a huge regulation switch for the upcoming year, there will be three separate pre-season tests: Barcelona (26-30 January), Bahrain (11-13 February and 18-20 February). Barcelona is even a private test to give teams the opportunity to adapt to the new rules without the beady eye of the public, ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on 6-8 March.
Vasseur told Motorsport.com, “We are not used to nine test days. The last four or five seasons, we did three. It’s an advantage, but it’s also a completely different programme. It means that the first target in this kind of season is to get the reliability. First, we need to get mileage.”
“It’s also what we want to avoid compared to 2025, is that when we were lost at the beginning of the season with the disqualification, we lost mileage, we lost reference, and then you are running after this.”
He described it as a ‘long process’, as he expects the cars to look very different in just under two months’ time when we get to the opening race in Melbourne. It is such a development which Vasseur therefore thinks will define the upcoming regulation era, as Ferrari bids for its first title since the 2008 constructors’ championship.
Adding, “Next year it won’t be about the first picture of the season, it won’t be all about the classification of Australia, it will be a lot about development and capacity of quick development. That season won’t be over in Australia for sure, it doesn’t matter if we are P1 or P10, but it will be a long way until the end, it will be a long way for everybody.”
While he is excited about his first season with Red Bull, Hadjar says he has no expectations because everyone is starting from scratch, and it would be crucial to try to get ahead.
Lewis Hamilton marked his forty-first birthday by issuing a rally cry to the team, insisting the “time for change is now.” Hamilton endured a tough debut season at Ferrari, finishing sixth in the championship and failing to secure a single podium in the Grand Prix format, which he described as a “nightmare.”
In his first comments since the Abu Dhabi test, the seven-time champion wrote, “Another return. I’m incredibly grateful for this break. Time to disconnect, recharge and find a bit of inner peace. Time with family and friends, replenishing with rest and good laughs has been everything I needed after a very draining year.”
“I’m conscious that we’re entering the Year of the Horse and leaving behind the Year of the Snake. The time for change is now. Starting new routines, leaving behind unwanted patterns and working on growth.”
Let go of things that don’t serve you. This can take time, there will be things you can’t get rid of immediately, but it starts with the first step. Even though the world can seem like a mess, I hope that you’re staying focused on living life to the fullest.”
Hamilton goes into his second season with Ferrari, he will be hoping that is a good omen as his first title with McLaren and Mercedes came in his second season, he is looking for a record-breaking eighth title as well as Ferrari’s first drivers since 2007 and constructors ‘ title since 2008, the team’s longest period without any championship.
Ferrari will stick with its current naming convention by entering the SF-26 in the 2026 season, the team confirmed the car, which had been known as Project 678, would publicly follow the naming convention of its predecessors. The team are facing a key season having switched early to this years car.
Ferrari will officially launch the SF-26 and its livery on 23 January at its headquarters in Maranello, followed by a brief shakedown on its Fiorano test track. Team boss Vasseur has set “aggressive” targets to develop the 2026 car as late as possible, meaning he has pushed back the final assembly until the eve of the Fiorano session.
Vasseur said, “This will be aggressive for sure, because we will finish the assembly of the car the day before the launch. The launch will be [on] 23 January in Maranello. It means that we’ll finish the car on the 22nd. And this is aggressive, but everybody will do the same.”
Williams
Williams has confirmed that the livery for its 2026 car, the FW48, will be revealed on Tuesday, 3rd February. However, the team have not confirmed whether the reveal will be via a release on social media or a launch event with drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon alongside team principal James Vowles.
Williams will also kick off the season with a separate fan-designed livery, which drew in almost 55,000 votes from 162 countries. Last year, the team finished fifth in the constructors, but Vowels from this time last year, their focus was on this years regulation changes.
Racing Bulls
Arvid Lindblad is braced for a tough debut in 2026, following advice from Racing Bulls team bosses Alan Permane and Peter Bayer. The British-Swedish driver has rapidly risen from karting to F1 in five years, and last year his debut F2 season saw him take three wins on his way to sixth in the championship earning him a seat alongside Liam Lawson.
He told F1.com in an interview in Abu Dhabi and published this week, “The advice [from them has been that] things are going to be difficult. I shouldn’t be naive. I’m very aware of the fact that it will be a big challenge. It will be a really big step up. There’s a lot of work I have to do over the next coming months prior to Barcelona.”
Lindblad says its about being open-minded and focusing on himself, as there was nothing he didn’t already know, also was important to work hard and focus on himself. But he is confident of his trajectory after being in the top six in both F3 and F2.
Adding “But even then, during all the tests, during the first part of the season, there’s going to be a lot of things for me to be learning up to speed on. Even also on the team side, there will be that as well, because it’s going to be so much that is new. We’re all going to have to learn and develop together.
“It’s just about being open-minded. It’s nothing I already don’t know, that I need to just work hard and keep focused on myself.”
Aston Martin
Honda has shared a glimpse of its new power unit, which will be used exclusively by Aston Martin. Taking to social media, the Japanese manufacturer shared a close-up shot as well as a short video showing the silhouette of the power unit. A simple Instagram post read, “Anticipation rising.”
Honda will unveil the 2026 power unit during an event on 20 January, ahead of Aston Martin’s launch on 9 February.
Speaking to Aston Martin about how this will impact the cars, Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe explained: “Moving to a PU with a 50:50 split means we have to improve the efficiency of how we generate and store more electrical energy – but we also have to determine where and how much of it is used. This isn’t new: the current power units require careful management of where energy is recovered and where it is deployed around the circuit – but it becomes more critical in 2026.”
“The patterns of energy use differ from corner to corner, and a single circuit might have thousands of energy use patterns. We have developed software in-house at HRC to manage more than 20,000 parameters of data stream coming from the power unit to define the best energy-use patterns.”
Haas
Haas has rescheduled the launch of their 2026 car, the VF-26, to Monday, 19th January three days earlier than initially planned. The team announced its intention to launch on the 23rd January, but later Alpine and Ferrari also announced their launches on the same day.
Haas has therefore decided to switch to 19 January “to avoid over-congestion of team launches” on the original date, a spokesperson for the team stated. The VF-26 will first appear as digital renders and video. It will be powered by Ferrari and driven by Esteban Ocon and Ollie Bearman again after both racers joined the team last year.
The team also announced a retail partnership with Castore, which will also provide the teams kit from this season. The British company first entered the sport with McLaren and then partnered with Red Bull and Alpine, it hasn’t been confirmed if these existing partnerships will be altered at all.
The team wrote on X, “Welcoming Castore to the team as our Official Kit and Retail Partner. Engineered for the demands of Formula 1, this new partnership will see Castore design and supply all on-track and off-track performance apparel for the team, replica teamwear and a series of dedicated fanwear collections.”
Team principal Ayao Komatsu said in a press release. “As ambitions and expectations for TGR Haas F1 Team grow significantly, we’re delighted to partner with Castore to present this elevated merchandise experience for our fans.”
“As a name that has quickly become synonymous within our sport, Castore understands our need for agility and quality when providing the best to our team, and as a global brand, we’re excited to bring a greater offering via a first-class retail experience to our supporters.”
Tom Beahon, co-founder of Castore, added: “Our partnership with TGR Haas F1 Team continues the exciting momentum we’ve built in Formula 1. TGR Haas F1 Team represents another world-class organisation that shares our commitment to innovation and high performance. We’re proud to support the team with technically advanced apparel and to create elevated fanwear collections that bring supporters even closer to the sport.
Audi
On Wednesday the team announced they had completed their first fire-up of the power unit, which they called a ‘fundamental checkpoint,’ in validating years of development and confirming the successful integration of the core components.
It also says it was a solid technical baseline ahead of its debut as well as ‘a solid technical baseline as the team continues to work towards the major regulation shift in 2026. The successful operation of the integrated unit is a testament to the precision and determination driving the project forward.’
Gernot Döllner, Chairman and CEO of Audi, “For Audi, entering Formula 1 is a key part of our brand’s ongoing renewal. This milestone is a clear demonstration of our ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’ ambition. It is the result of seamless teamwork and a relentless pursuit of excellence that will serve as a guiding example for the entire Audi organization.”
“This project is a catalyst for change, fostering pride, identity, and enthusiasm. With the fire-up, the hard work of the teams in Hinwil, Neuburg and Bicester now truly comes to life, marking the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Audi’s motorsport history.”
Head of the Audi F1 Project, Mattia Binotto said “A fire-up is always a special moment, but this one marks a new beginning. It is the tangible result of our collective ambition and the dedicated work of our teams in Neuburg and Hinwil. Seeing everything come together for the first time gives the entire project incredible energy. We have built a solid foundation for what will be a long journey, defined by our relentless drive to improve.”
Team Principal Jonathan Wheatley, added, “This successful fire-up is a critical milestone that validates the quality of the work and collaboration across all departments. It energises the entire team and provides a clear focus as we prepare for the next phases of development, including the moment we first bring the car to track. This achievement brings our first race in Melbourne into sharp focus, and we will build on this foundation as one united team.”
Alpine
Alpine managing director Steve Nielsen believes Franco Colapinto needs time “for that talent to mature and deliver”, as the Argentine prepares to embark on his first full season in 2026. Colapinto first experienced F1 when he replaced Logan Sargeant at Williams midway through the 2024 season and immediately showed strong pace.
However, when he replaced Jack Doohan after six races last season, he was unable to repeat that performance and was the only driver other than Doohan who finished the season without a point. However, that outcome came amid a deeply difficult campaign for Alpine, with the Enstone-based outfit ending the year last in the constructors.
Having renewed its faith in Colapinto for 2026, Alpine will now give him his first opportunity to contest a full season. When asked about Colapinto, Nielsen said, “Franco is a young driver. We’ve seen other young drivers go through good and difficult periods – he’s on that journey.”
“There were races earlier in the year when he was a match for Pierre, and on a couple of occasions, maybe even faster than Pierre in the races. He’s on that journey, and we’ll give him all the support he needs to be as quick as he can be, whether that’s faster than Pierre or close to Pierre.”
He says that its important for the team to have two drivers scoring points and that means stability in the second car, allowing the time for the talent to mature. But there could be some who will ask why that wasn’t given to Doohan and point to Colapinto’s financial backing. But overall it was a tough season, with the team not bringing upgrades and that meant more often than not fighting towards the back of the field, with the team scoring points in just one race across the final eleven grands prix of the season.
Cadillac
Guanyu Zhou has been announced as Cadillac’s reserve driver after his departure from Ferrari, the Chinese driver left Ferrari at the end of last month. It will see Zhou join forces with Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon, who is also part of the Chinese driver’s management team, and there was talk of him becoming one of its drivers.
Cadillac instead opted for grand prix winners Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, the latter having been Zhou’s Sauber teammate for three seasons before both were dropped at the end of 2024. Zhou said, “I am delighted to join the Cadillac Formula 1 Team as a reserve driver ahead of its Formula 1 debut. This is one of the biggest and most exciting new projects that the sport has ever seen.”
“I have worked with both Graeme and Valtteri for many years in various capacities, so joining the team feels like rejoining family. Having had recent experience on track and in developing the cars off track, I know I can add huge value to the Cadillac Formula 1 Team, and I am looking forward to supporting them the best way that I can.”
Zhou joins a group of drivers supporting Perez and Bottas behind the scenes, with ex-IndyCar star Colton Herta in a test role and Simon Pagenaud, Pietro Fittipaldi and Charlie Eastwood all as simulator drivers. He would be the primary reserve driver as Herta and Pagenaud don’t have F1 experience, and more experience than Fittipaldi who doesn’t yet have a super licence, so Zhou is the ready-made replacement should Perez or Bottas not be able to race.
Lowdon said, “Our process for selecting a reserve driver has been as thorough as the search for our race drivers. We wanted a candidate who had recent F1 driving experience, is prepared to work hard as part of a team and understands the challenges of developing a car throughout the season.”
“Zhou fits the bill perfectly. He will be a great asset to us as we go racing in 2026, and we look forward to him being an integral part of our team.”
Sergio Perez has revealed that Red Bull funded a pricey therapy session to support him back when he raced for the team. The Mexican joined Red Bull in 2021 as the team struggled to find a driver able to match Max Verstappen, who won ten Grands Prix on his way to his maiden title.
He told the Cracks podcast, “As soon as I arrived at Red Bull, in the first races, when I didn’t deliver results, [they told me] ‘What you need is a psychologist, you have to see a psychologist?’ On top of that, you have your whole team against you. Publicly, it was very difficult”
“One day I arrive at the Red Bull factory and they tell me, ‘Hey, there’s a bill for you’ – £6,000 from the psychologist. I tell them, ‘Ah, can you send it to Helmut [Marko, Red Bull advisor]? He’ll pay it’. It was £6,000 for one call,” he laughed.
“Then Helmut tells me, ‘Hey, how did it go?’. I tell him, ‘Perfect, with this session we’re all set’. And that’s how we went on for three years, right? Already cured by the psychologist, the results started to come. Well, the call worked.” Though in the first three year Perez was consistent podium finisher his s performance collapsed in 2024 at the wheel of a tricky RB20, which led to his exit from the squad.
He added, “I looked for it everywhere, but deep down I knew perfectly well that when you have a car where you’re thinking about what’s going to happen, what it’s going to do, in which corner you’re going to crash, you can’t go fast. And on top of that you have your whole team against you. Publicly it was very difficult. I think only someone very mentally strong can withstand something like that.”
