{"id":512751,"date":"2026-03-04T01:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T01:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/512751\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T01:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T01:29:11","slug":"my-doubts-ahead-of-the-season-opener-plus-leclercs-dog-leo-very-good-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/512751\/","title":{"rendered":"My doubts ahead of the season opener. Plus: Leclerc\u2019s dog Leo, very good boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Welcome to Prime Tire.\u00a0Charles Leclerc got married<\/a>, and while we\u2019re happy for him, we\u2019re only here for the Leo content. It did not disappoint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

No notes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Australian Grand Prix week. I\u2019m Patrick, and nobody will be with me shortly, because they\u2019re asleep in Australia. Let\u2019s get to it.<\/p>\n

But first, share your predictions for the season here<\/a>. We\u2019ll share ours on the site Thursday and review yours here Friday.<\/p>\n

Update: How the Iran conflict affects F1<\/p>\n

Before we get to racing, it\u2019s important to note that recent retaliatory missile and drone strikes against U.S. military bases across the Gulf have hit installations in Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE \u2014 all four countries that host Formula 1 races. The sport visits Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on back-to-back weekends starting on April 12.<\/p>\n

The next three races \u2014 Australia, China, Japan \u2014 are not in the affected region, and F1 noted as much in a carefully worded statement. The championship\u00a0says it is monitoring<\/a>\u00a0the situation closely and\u00a0chartering flights for key staff to Melbourne<\/a>. The race this weekend is on.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll keep you updated as the situation develops. You can follow The New York Times\u2019 live coverage on it\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Out on a Limb: Things I will\/won\u2019t believe until Sunday<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Tuesday before the season opener, and everyone wants opinions. Here are mine, with varying degrees of confidence.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe:\u00a0That the preseason pecking order\u00a0means anything<\/a>, especially this year. The fastest preseason team has failed to win either title in back-to-back seasons, and its hit rate over the last decade is well below 50 percent.<\/p>\n

I believe:\u00a0That we are going to see some genuinely wild starts in the next few weeks. Ferrari apparently figured this out already (more on that later). Everyone else is somewhere on the learning curve. \u201cVery random\u201d is how Oscar Piastri described preseason starts. Fun for us, though.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe:\u00a0That we have clean reads on where Audi and Cadillac actually are. Don\u2019t get me wrong: Both will finish near the back on Sunday. The interesting question is by how much, and whether one of them surprises us. My\u00a0money is on Cadillac<\/a>\u00a0being the more charming disaster of the two.<\/p>\n

I believe:\u00a0George Russell is a title contender. And so is Leclerc.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe:\u00a0That the broadcasts suddenly know how to explain the new cars to the audience this weekend. We\u2019ll all figure this out together by June, I guess.<\/p>\n

I believe:\u00a0That Verstappen will be fast despite\u00a0hating every second of it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I choose not to have an opinion on:\u00a0Whether McLaren has lost their status as the class of the field. Their car looked competitive but not dominant in testing. Ask me after Lap 10.<\/p>\n

I reserve the right to change all of the above by approximately 8 p.m. Sunday.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s schedule:<\/p>\n

FP1:\u00a0Thursday 8:30 p.m. ET \/ Friday 1:30 a.m. GMT
\nFP2:\u00a0Friday midnight ET \/ Friday 5:00 a.m. GMT
\nFP3:\u00a0Friday 8:30 p.m. ET \/ Saturday 1:30 a.m. GMT
\nQualifying:\u00a0Saturday midnight ET \/ Saturday 5:00 a.m. GMT
\nRace:\u00a0Saturday 11:00 p.m. ET \/ Sunday 4:00 a.m. GMT
\nA Brief Orientation: The new rules, explained (kind of)<\/p>\n

Nobody fully understands the 2026 regulations yet.<\/p>\n

At some point during preseason testing, Max Verstappen called the new cars \u201canti-racing<\/a>.\u201d Kimi Antonelli called racing them \u201cspeed chess.\u201d McLaren\u2019s Andrea Stella said overtaking during testing was \u201cextremely difficult.\u201d You\u2019ll recall me lightly dunking on the broadcasters for melting into\u00a0metaphysical puddles trying to explain it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2026 regulations are\u00a0genuinely complicated<\/a>. The engines and aerodynamic philosophy have changed. There\u2019s something called Boost, and it\u2019s not about the phone company. The cars are smaller and lighter and run on fully sustainable fuel. Nearly everything is different, the drivers aren\u2019t\u00a0sure if they\u2019re having fun<\/a>\u00a0and the teams themselves won\u2019t know the true pecking order until cars hit the track in Melbourne next week.<\/p>\n

(Don\u2019t fret \u2014\u00a0Luke says F1 still feels like F1<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019ve watched the testing coverage and still aren\u2019t quite sure what \u201cStraight Mode\u201d means, you\u2019re in good company. We\u2019ve been working through all of it in a series of explainers. Good people talked to us \u2014 engineers, team bosses, drivers \u2014 and we\u2019ve tried to make sense of what they said:<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll publish one more for you tomorrow on what the weight and size reductions actually mean.<\/p>\n

Aston Martin: Things are unraveling for the team in green<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re watching the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday and you see Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll pull their Aston Martins into the pit lane, park them and climb out \u2014 don\u2019t panic. That\u2019s all part of the plan? Question mark?<\/p>\n

Aston Martin is in trouble, folks.<\/p>\n

Reports this week have suggested the team\u2019s realistic goal in Melbourne is simply to get the cars off the grid and complete a handful of laps \u2014 enough to fulfill their contractual obligations to F1 before calling it a day. On the final day of testing in Bahrain, Aston completed six laps. Six laps. I\u2019ve done more laps of a parking garage. Not on purpose. Let\u2019s rewind:\u00a0Luke has the full story<\/a>\u00a0on how it got this bad.<\/p>\n

Two things worth holding in your head as you watch this weekend:<\/p>\n

This is not necessarily fatal. McLaren looked lost for two full seasons before winning back-to-back constructors\u2019 championships. But \u2026
\nAlonso is 44. He came here specifically for this. To, if not to win that elusive third championship, at least compete for it. To win races. Watching him park the car he\u2019s waited for laps into the first race could be one of the sadder storylines I can remember.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile \u2026 Ferrari might be fine?<\/p>\n

Keep an eye on Ferrari this weekend. In Bahrain, Lewis Hamilton charged past four cars on a practice start. Then Leclerc did the same thing the next morning. Just blasted off the line while everyone else stood there blinking.<\/p>\n

Luke has the full breakdown<\/a>\u00a0of why Ferrari\u2019s starts look so good, and why it might matter.<\/p>\n

Outside the points<\/p>\n

\u2797 We have a compromise\u00a0in the compression ratio saga<\/a>. Hurray! I think!<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcc8 Cadillac confirmed their\u00a0first upgrades are already coming for Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udceb Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic\u2019s other newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic\u2019s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-512751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}