Hello welcome back to This Week, the first week of the summer break with McLaren in pole for the championship the team seeks turning into a exclusive fight between its drivers, Lewis Hamilton U-turns on his comments last weekend but why is he now saying, “Don’t count me out”, what\u2019s going on with George Russell\u2019s contract\u2026.<\/p>\n
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella believes that Ferrari, Mercedes and Max Verstappen will challenge the team for wins in the rest of the season. The team has won eleven of the fourteen Grands Prix, though there is the odd threat from the rest of the top four, with the Red Bull driver winning the Spa sprint and Charles Leclerc taking pole in Budapest.<\/p>\n
Stella feels Ferrari, in particular, stands out as a threat for the rest of the season, given its recent breakthrough with upgrades. Stella said after last weekend\u2019s race, \u201cFerrari has been competitive over the last few races. They were competitive in dry conditions in Silverstone, they were competitive in Belgium. Somehow, this wasn’t expressed fully.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we saw yesterday [Hungarian GP qualifying] that they were in condition to score the pole position, and in the race, it’s not like in the first stint we were holding back. We were trying to go as fast as possible, and Leclerc was managing the lead of the race with some degree of control. So, I’m not surprised. I think Ferrari is going to be a contender for victories for the remainder of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added they will need to take Ferrari, Mercedes and Verstappen into account in qualifying and a race as they will find a way of fighting for wins. His Ferrari counterpart Fred Vasseur hopes that prediction is true, he counters that McLaren can consistently fight at the front in all circumstances, while his team still needs preferable conditions and circuit characteristics to raise a serious challenge.<\/p>\n
But Vasseur admitted that it could be difficult to predict one weekend to the next, but Ferrari were consistent on the tyres and able to manage the pace. Saying, \u201cIf you want to win, we need to be very consistent in every single condition. From the free practice to have a good preparation for the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis Hamilton said, “Don’t count me out” after a difficult weekend in Budapest. The seven-time champion, a nine-time winner in Budapest, after being knocked out in Q2 said he was “useless” and Ferrari \u2018should consider another driver\u2019.<\/p>\n
When asked to clarify his comments following the race on Sunday, he said to Sky Sports, “When you have a feeling, you have a feeling. There’s a lot going on in the background that is not great.”<\/p>\n
Despite his cutting comments to the media, the Ferrari driver looked ahead to a reset and recharge during the summer break. In the media briefing, he said, \u201cIt\u2019s been a challenging weekend and one to move on from. We weren\u2019t able to make the progress we hoped for, but I\u2019m grateful for the effort everyone in the team put in throughout the weekend. Now we head into the break. I\u2019ll be using the time to reset, recharge and come back stronger. I\u2019m not where I want to be yet, but the fight\u2019s not over – don\u2019t count me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
But team principal Fred Vasseur was more positive despite Hamilton\u2019s struggles, adding they would be investigating the severe drop in pace that both the seven-time champion and his team-mate Charles Leclerc experienced. Vasseur explained, \u201cAs for Lewis, starting on hards, he lost a couple of places and that put him in traffic in a very long DRS train, which is the worst possible scenario. That\u2019s what decided us to go for a one-stop with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking at the positives, of course yesterday we got our first pole position of the season and for the first part of the race, we were matching McLaren in terms of pace, and we had a fifteen-second lead over Russell. But then we lost everything and didn\u2019t have the pace anymore, so now we have to investigate why.<\/p>\n
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies has stated Red Bulls struggles couldn\u2019t be fixed simply by copying elements of a more consistent Racing Bulls car. Isack Hadjar and both Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda when they driven for the senior team.<\/p>\n
The second Red Bull was outqualified by at least one Racing Bulls on nine occasions (sprint qualifying not included), with even Max Verstappen three thousandths slower than Lawson in Austria. Red Bull endured one of its worst weekends in recent times last weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Verstappen qualified down in eighth, just ahead of the Racing Bulls, and struggled to ninth place behind Lawson on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Following the qualifying session on Saturday, Sky Sports asked Mekies if Red Bull could take things from the Racing Bulls car to find more performance with the RB21, an idea he ruled out. He said, \u201cNo, I think the question is fair, but there’s a genesis of the car. Where the cars are coming from is too different for anyone to transfer anything from a car to another. It’s what F1 is today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, it’s ten independent teams all coming with their own ideas about where to develop the car, what difficulties they found along the way, which development paths they have ended up having due to that. And there is nothing you could take from a car to another. It’s really down to how it was developed from early on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mekies also says they have unsuccessfully \u2018experimented\u2019 last weekend, trying to find a solution to the teams lack of grip, saying they could see they were very slow in the slow and medium speed corners which there are a lot of in Budapest.<\/p>\n
The contract saga over George Russell\u2019s future now appears to be in his hands, after Mercedes have kept him waiting for the last eight months. The Englishman said following another strong performance last weekend in Budapest, \u201cnothing\u2019s going to happen over the summer\u201d with regards to his contract, while it looks like the roles have been reversed.<\/p>\n
In that context, it was interesting to note the phrasing of a \u201cmid-season report\u201d video Wolff recorded for registered fans of the Mercedes team. Against a background of a rousing video montage, Wolff came as close as he is ever likely to come to explicitly saying Russell was the faster of his two drivers last year.<\/p>\n
This is noteworthy since it is a highly emotive topic for the fan community and therefore dangerous ground, even if the statistics largely bear it out. While both drivers won two Grands Prix last season, Hamilton\u2019s Spa victory was an inherited one when his team-mate was disqualified having crossed the line first on the road.<\/p>\n
Wolff said, \u201cWhen I look at George, the development he’s made since he joined Formula One from the fast kiddo in Williams, and then being drafted into Mercedes, clearly with the greatest of all greats, with Hamilton.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve seen already last year he started to be so strong on pure pace, in terms of the results, the stronger driver. And now with Lewis having gone to Ferrari, he’s taken the senior driver slot, and it completely came naturally and he delivers. He delivers, even when the car is not on the level, he outperforms the car, you can always count on George.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeyond the driving, obviously, he’s also great with our partners and does a lot of activities that help us to build his brand and build our brand.\u201d This could suggest that the deal will be done at some point as he went onto call him a \u2018number one driver.\u2019<\/p>\n
Franco Colapinto crashed his Alpine on Wednesday during a Pirelli tyre test at the Hungaroring. The Italian tyre supplier has been running regular tests, like this two-day session following the Hungarian Grand Prix, to prepare its 2026 F1 compounds. The new tyres are smaller and narrower as part of the world championship\u2019s new technical rules.<\/p>\n
Three 2025 cars were on track yesterday in Mogyor\u00f3d, provided by Alpine, McLaren and Racing Bulls, with Alpine still in action on Thursday alongside Ferrari. Track time is usually spread among teams that volunteer to perform the tests. However, the Argentine crashed at Turn Eleven, damaging the car, and was cleared by medics following a trip to the medical centre.<\/p>\n
A statement said, \u201cDuring Day Two of Pirelli Tyre Testing at the Hungaroring this morning, Franco Colapinto had an incident at Turn Eleven. Franco was assessed on site at the medical centre and is OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mario Isola, head of Pirelli Motorsport, later added: “We have collected a lot of data, although it was a pity that we lost some of our potential mileage today when Colapinto went off the track, even though this was not in any way linked to the tyres.”<\/p>\n
So far this season, Colapinto, who is yet to finish a grand prix inside the top twelve this season, while team-mate Pierre Gasly \u2013 who was also due to drive the Alpine on Thursday, has collected thirteen points in the same period, to add to his seven points from the first six rounds when Jack Doohan was his teammate.<\/p>\n
Carlos Sainz says struggles in last weekend’s race in Budapest are an example of the philosophy changes that the team needs for 2026. Sainz felt that Williams’ poor form in Hungary had been in line with expectations seen over 2025; the Spaniard noted that the FW47 performs well in circuits with longer straights and short corners, but struggles to retain downforce through the longer radius turns.<\/p>\n
Although Williams has ensured that its car this season has been more of an all-rounder and has scored points at ten of the fourteen weekends, it still retains some of the characteristics of its predecessor. Most of thoughts ten circuits have been high speed and very peaky in terms of downforce, making the teams inconsistent.<\/p>\n
Sainz added that there was little Williams could do about that situation until next year, when its all-new 2026 car gets pressed into action – and revealed his hopes that it will take on board his feedback. He said, \u201cIt’s [Hungaroring] always been a difficult track for the team. We had quite a long debrief after qualifying because obviously I’m coming from the team that was on pole, going back to a team that was P13 with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI could give them very strong feedback on why this car is lagging around a track like this. Obviously for this year we cannot do anything, but for the future hopefully it’s a very big learning curve for the team to know how we need to develop the Formula One car to be successful and competitive also in tracks like Budapest or Barcelona.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Sainz, pointed out what we all ready knew that the team aren\u2019t developing this car and are limited to setup changes to try and get the most out of the car. Adding \u201cIt’s been a very strong start to our time together in terms of the way we want to develop the team, the car, the interaction with Alex, with James.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not like we can exploit the feedback of the two drivers and the intentions that we have to develop this car, what we need, because we are not putting it in the wind tunnel to develop. That’s where next year is going to be a lot more challenging for the team and for ourselves to see if we can actually improve the main weaknesses of this car that are very clear in tracks like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dive into the latest buzz in the world of Formula 1 with our comprehensive analysis and round-up of this week’s top stories. Discoverthe strategic moves by top teams, and what it all means for the upcoming season. Stay ahead of the curve with insights on and off the track. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12330,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,18],"tags":[2250,664,754,2213,1996],"class_list":["post-14922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-analysis","category-this-week","tag-2250","tag-f1","tag-formula-one","tag-news-analysis","tag-this-week"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14922"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14925,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14922\/revisions\/14925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.f1vault.co.uk\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}