we did pretty well<\/a> – highlights included \u2018Lando champion with Oscar close\u2019, \u2018Doohan sacked because money\u2019 and \u2018Williams finally relevant\u2019 – so let\u2019s see if we can repeat that sort of success rate.<\/p>\nWe make our bold F1 predictions for 2026.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n
OSCAR BEATS LANDO… BUT ENDS UP PAINFULLY CLOSE AGAIN<\/p>\n
We all know the story by now – Oscar Piastri leads the world championship for much of the season, then it all turns sour at the Italian Grand Prix when McLaren tells him to let Lando Norris through, and his campaign sorta falls apart from there.<\/p>\n
We do not believe McLaren actively worked against one of its drivers. We think Piastri happened to find himself in more situations where the team had to make a call going the other way because they had talked themselves into a corner about Being Fair and Treating Both Drivers Equally and Letting Them Race.<\/p>\n
And we think Piastri has himself to blame for some of his mistakes. His lows were lower than Lando\u2019s; he was relatively off the pace at low-grip tracks. Azerbaijan was a particularly poor weekend.<\/p>\n
But he was also in his third F1 season, and in a title fight for the first time. Norris\u2019 experience advantage paid off – it was the Brit\u2019s seventh year, matching when Max Verstappen won his first title. Piastri presents as older than he is because of his composure.<\/p>\n
That composure and the growth he showcased during 2025 should serve him well in 2026. He didn\u2019t crack under the pressure of going wheel-to-wheel with Verstappen early in the season when he won four out of five races.<\/p>\n
Of course the speed of the McLaren was the main reason he and Norris were up the front with the Dutchman, but we (and a lot of others) came out of the year more impressed with Piastri\u2019s racecraft and skill than with Norris\u2019.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s why we think Piastri will continue to grow and actually beat Norris across the course of the season. We know he is good enough to win the world title if he\u2019s in a car worthy of the world title, because he almost did it.<\/p>\n
The problem, then, could be the car.<\/p>\n
Piastri MOBBED in Melbourne | 00:25<\/p>\n
GEORGE WINS THE WORLD TITLE<\/p>\n
We\u2019re already expecting a moment some time in November when David Croft says something like \u201cand the man from King\u2019s Lynn is now King of Formula 1!\u201d<\/p>\n
George Russell is the betting favourite to win the 2026 F1 world title, partially because of his strength as a driver (and in particular his consistency), but mostly because it sounds like Mercedes has nailed the new rules better than anyone else.<\/p>\n
Ferrari was the fastest car of the pre-season but you can only trust the pure numbers so much, and you certainly can\u2019t trust the Italian outfit to get through a campaign without multiple mistakes.<\/p>\n
If the Mercedes engine is the best of the bunch, it only makes sense that the works team will know it best, and they haven\u2019t gone for the sort of radical design that ruined their chances early in the previous era.<\/p>\n
Kimi Antonelli showed some promising signs at the back end of his rookie season but, understandably, also looked like a rookie plenty of times. He\u2019s quick but he\u2019s also a literal teenager.<\/p>\n
Russell, on the other hand, had a relatively anonymous season often running 10 seconds away from any other car while posting solid thirds, fourths and fifths. He didn\u2019t have race-winning machinery but he\u2019s clearly good enough to make a car that\u2019s quick enough reach most of its potential.<\/p>\n
We expect Russell to make a strong start to the season and potentially be pegged back as the McLaren improves, but Piastri and Norris will take enough points off each other to limit their chances of a comeback.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s partially based on the way McLaren has spoken about their 2026 challenger – admittedly teams are rarely boastful but they don\u2019t sound like a team that has everything in order right at this moment. More like a team that trusts they\u2019ll get there with a bit more info and development.<\/p>\n
Leclerc could sneak into the title picture too but we have him fourth in the pecking order on the grounds that Ferrari is gonna Ferrari.<\/p>\n
Kayo & Fox Sports secure new F1 Deal | 03:40<\/p>\n
RED BULL KEEPS ITS NO.2 DRIVER FOR A FULL CALENDAR YEAR<\/p>\n
Which shouldn\u2019t be a bold prediction, but, well…<\/p>\n
This is about two things – the driver himself, and the team not being so dramatic for once.<\/p>\n
Isack Hadjar was one of the most impressive members of Red Bull\u2019s junior team in some time, with a strong rookie season capped off by a podium in the Netherlands, outscoring teammate Liam Lawson (who had two fewer races).<\/p>\n
Lawson was the victim of arguably the team\u2019s cruellest sacking yet, gone after just two races, with his replacement Yuki Tsunoda failing to keep the team anywhere close to McLaren in the constructors\u2019 race despite Max Verstappen\u2019s best efforts.<\/p>\n
We know the problems by now. Red Bull has, understandably, developed a car that suits the best driver on the grid. Verstappen\u2019s basket is worth putting your eggs in.<\/p>\n
But we would expect them to be more patient with Hadjar, partially because they can\u2019t just keep sacking young drivers and expect to find a good one, but also because Christian Horner and Helmut Marko are gone.<\/p>\n
Arvid Lindblad would be the next man up but the 18-year-old himself has been rushed into the second Racing Bulls seat, and while he\u2019s impressive he hasn\u2019t had a Verstappen-like rise that demands a place in the senior team.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some chance we\u2019re underestimating Red Bull. If the car is anywhere near good enough, Verstappen will be in the title fight; we\u2019re not worried about that.<\/p>\n
But they need to find a way to have a competitive team, not just a competitive driver – because at some point after all of his threats Verstappen will simply walk away from the sport and go become a full-time Twitch streamer playing Assetto Corsa, or something equally weird.<\/p>\n
Actually giving a driver of Hadjar\u2019s quality more than a season will make that goal much easier to achieve.<\/p>\n
Middle East conflict to impact AUS GP | 05:00<\/p>\n
ALPINE GO FROM LAST TO BEST OF THE REST<\/p>\n
This is more about everyone else having question marks than us being overly convinced by the French outfit.<\/p>\n
With no help from the second seat Pierre Gasly was a consistently mid midfield driver in 2025, sneaking into the points a handful of times, but Alpine\u2019s car was too bad to avoid last place.<\/p>\n
Above them, Sauber capitalised on a stellar midseason run of form from Nico Hulkenberg (including the Hulkenpodium at Silverstone), Aston Martin, Haas and Racing Bulls traded being sixth-best (the former weighed down by Lawrence\u2019s son), and Williams finally raced as professionally as James Vowles sounds.<\/p>\n
But much like Mario Kart, F1 features rubber-banding – not just the ability for the backmarkers to focus more on next year\u2019s car, but the extra aero testing time given in reverse standings order. And that will help the perennial midfielders return to their rightful place of \u2018should get someone into Q3 most weekends\u2019.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re helped by having the Mercedes engine in their still awkward-looking pink and blue machine. It\u2019s pretty clearly the best of the bunch thus far, and while they\u2019re not going to catch the works team or McLaren, they will be better than Williams which barely made it to testing with a car that apparently needs the motorsport equivalent of GLP-1 injectables.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll be challenged by Racing Bulls, but the junior team didn\u2019t look quite as quick in testing and has a genuine rookie in Arvid Lindblad.<\/p>\n
They won\u2019t be challenged by Aston Martin or Cadillac, as we\u2019ll get to, while Audi will need time to settle in as it transitions into works team status, and we can\u2019t quite trust Haas to be quick enough.<\/p>\n
It may be a case where Alpine starts well and clings onto 5th as the others improve, but that worked well enough for Aston in 2024.<\/p>\n
Oh, how they\u2019re longing for those relative glory days now.<\/p>\n
F1 reserve driver suffers horror crash | 00:22<\/p>\n
ASTON ARE EMBARRASSING EARLY, BUT GET IT TOGETHER EVENTUALLY<\/p>\n
It may be a bold prediction at this point merely to suggest Aston Martin actually has a car running in the Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Slow in their brief testing appearances before having to limit running due to running out of parts – already?! – the car that was supposed to be a dark horse thanks to Adrian Newey\u2019s masterful design work instead comes into the season opener as the paddock joke.<\/p>\n
There have been genuine suggestions they were looking to avoid the trip down under altogether, or do the bare minimum in qualifying to make the race start before retiring the car, because the Honda machine\u2019s battery pack is being so severely shaken during running it cannot last anywhere near a full race distance.<\/p>\n
This was effectively confirmed on media day<\/a> – they\u2019re basically tanking Australia, hoping to find a solution for China a week later, and then pray it\u2019s all cleared up in the fortnight before Honda\u2019s home race in Japan.<\/p>\nIt would be an embarrassing start to a moment they\u2019ve effectively been building towards for years, with all of that reported investment towards becoming a genuine front-runner for the first time in the new era. But all of that work can\u2019t possibly be for nothing.<\/p>\n
At some point, it\u2019ll pay off. They aren\u2019t a bunch of mugs. And while we\u2019re not saying they\u2019re going to be challenging for podiums by the end of the season, they should at least be back in the midfield with the potential to grow. Let\u2019s say they get at least one top six finish by season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n
And they should at least be better than a completely new team, Cadillac. While they\u2019ve overperformed by not underwhelming across the pre-season, it\u2019s still unrealistic to expect much more than a respectable back-of-the-pack finish from the 11th team.<\/p>\n
Eventually Aston will surpass Cadillac. Eventually Newey\u2019s brilliance will shine through. Eventually they won\u2019t be a team most known for a familial relationship.<\/p>\n
Surely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alright, let\u2019s try this one more time. The Australian Grand Prix opens the 2026 Formula 1 season –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-521029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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