{"id":852209,"date":"2026-08-09T21:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T21:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/852209\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T21:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T21:00:11","slug":"f1-today-hamilton-backed-for-title-as-russell-announces-engagement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/852209\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Today | Hamilton backed for title as Russell announces engagement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-drivers\/lewis-hamilton\" title=\"Lewis Hamilton\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Lewis Hamilton<\/a> receiving the backing of a ex-Formula 1 world champion to win his eighth drivers&#8217; title this season, to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/f1-drivers\/george-russell\" title=\"George Russell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Russell<\/a> announcing his engagement to his long term partner, here are the main F1 stories of the day on 9 August.Hamilton backed by former championFormer two-time world champion Emerson Fittipaldi<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/news\/hamilton-backed-by-former-world-champion-i-hope-he-can-challenge-for-the-title\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> would like to see<\/a> Lewis Hamilton battle for the Formula 1 world title this year.<\/p>\n<p>Entering the second half of the 2026 F1 season, Hamilton is sitting in second place in the drivers&#8217; standings. The British driver is 50 points behind Kimi Antonelli and nine points ahead of the Italian&#8217;s Mercedes teammate, George Russell.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton has enjoyed a much improved season after a difficult 2025, winning his first race for Ferrari at the Barcelona Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to F1.com, the Brazilian said: &#8220;I really hope Lewis challenges for the championship. It\u2019d be extremely good to see Lewis and Ferrari running stronger, to dice with Mercedes. I hope so.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Russell announces engagement<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"720\" height=\"405\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20260627-0766.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"george-russell-mercedes-jpg.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo: Race Pictures<\/p>\n<p>George Russell has<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/lifestyle\/george-russell-announces-engagement-to-longtime-partner-carmen-mundt\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> announced his engagement<\/a> to partner Carmen Mundt, with the Mercedes driver sharing the news with his followers on social media.<\/p>\n<p>Russell posted a series of photographs of himself and Mundt, including a picture of his partner showing off her engagement ring. The announcement quickly attracted attention from across the F1 paddock, with several of Russell&#8217;s rivals and Mercedes congratulating the couple.<\/p>\n<p>The Mercedes driver, 28, and Mundt have been together since 2020 after meeting through a mutual friend in London. Mundt has since become a familiar face in the F1 paddock, regularly supporting Russell at races around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Russell&#8217;s post racked up likes from some of his F1 rivals, including Charles Leclerc, who himself married his partner, Alexandra Saint Mieux, back in February of this year. Pierre Gasly wrote &#8220;congrats to you both,&#8221; while the Instagram account of the Mercedes team also congratulated him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Lewis Hamilton receiving the backing of a ex-Formula 1 world champion to win his eighth drivers&#8217; title&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":852210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,28673,576,577,3024,932,82],"class_list":["post-852209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-news","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852209","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=852209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/852209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/852210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=852209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=852209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=852209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}