{"id":865967,"date":"2026-08-21T08:10:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/865967\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T08:10:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T08:10:21","slug":"the-themes-to-watch-for-the-rest-of-f1-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/865967\/","title":{"rendered":"The themes to watch for the rest of F1 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes<\/a> getting its house in order\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the half-way point of the season, Kimi Antonelli<\/a> leads Lewis Hamilton<\/a> by 219 points to 169 in the drivers\u2019 championship, while Mercedes remains in charge of the constructors\u2019 standings with 379 to Ferrari<\/a>\u2019s 307. And yet there is a palpable sense that the team that appeared to kick off this season from a position of dominance has been losing its iron grip on the competition. \u00a0
Both Antonelli and team-mate George Russell<\/a> have lost high points-paying positions to engine failures \u2013 Russell while leading in Canada, Antonelli while running second at Barcelona. The team believed it had identified the cause of both these and separate-but-related issues that had affected Merc customers McLaren<\/a> and Williams<\/a>. It rolled out a \u2018fix\u2019 in the form of a new battery architecture and control electronics from the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, along with a host of reliability-related changes within the power units themselves.<\/p>\n

On the chassis side, Mercedes has only introduced one major performance step, with a substantial aerodynamic package at Montreal in May. At the same time it has annoyed Ferrari by openly questioning how the\u00a0Maranello team has been able to apply more frequent update packages while remaining within the budget cap. \u00a0<\/p>\n

So, Mercedes has to navigate some challenging scenarios in the remaining months, including how hard to push on aero upgrades as the time comes to pivot towards next season, and how to manage the internal competition between its drivers. Antonelli has the upper hand so far in terms of how he is able to drive to optimise electrical deployment of the power unit. But questions remain over how much of the pace deficit between him and Russell is down to Russell\u2019s driving technique, and how much is a consequence of software. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The heavy but invisible hands of engine-management algorithms continue to be a hot topic, especially after a software glitch scuppered Russell\u2019s Hungarian GP. But penalties could also exert an influence on the championship battle:\u00a0Antonelli is now on his fourth new engine, Russell on his third\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"After <\/p>\n

After Aston Martin’s chassis upgrade in Hungary, it is Honda’s turn for an update in the Netherlands<\/p>\n

Crunch time for Aston Martin and Honda\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the last round before the summer break, the beleaguered Aston Martin team finally unveiled the long-awaited revamp of its troubled AMR26 chassis. A Honda engine upgrade is due for introduction at the forthcoming Dutch GP.<\/p>\n

Much has been riding on this. Both chassis and power unit have fallen well short of expectations, particularly those of team owner Lawrence Stroll, who has been pursuing a money-no-object approach to recruitment in recent years. The prospect of a car with the authorial hand of Adrian\u00a0Newey upon it, combined with Honda power, was mouth-watering given that this combination delivered four consecutive world championships with Max Verstappen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the car was late to the\u00a0pre-season Barcelona shakedown in January and barely completed a handful of laps without breaking down. Unreliability and lack of speed has been a persistent theme since then. Autosport understands that a furious Stroll was all for wielding the axe (again) on his technical team after the season opener in Australia, and was only mollified by the assurance that a nose-to-tail revision of the car would improve it.<\/p>\n

Make no mistake, Aston Martin\u2019s performance trajectory over the second half of this season will determine the immediate future of many people drawing a salary at the team\u2019s\u00a0Silverstone campus. There was an immediate uplift in Hungary, but moving from the back of the grid to the lower midfield isn\u2019t going to float Stroll\u2019s boat. In the coming races it needs to demonstrate that it can optimise the new package and avoid making the same mistakes in future. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Honda\u2019s issues stem from an\u00a0underpowered and unreliable internal combustion engine, and a hybrid system compromised by a fragile battery and the electrical motor\u2019s unusual location in the chassis, ahead of the engine (a choice made at the request of Newey\u2019s team, for aerodynamic packaging reasons). For its own pride it needs to show progress urgently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Verstappen <\/p>\n

Verstappen is signed, sealed, delivered at Red Bull – further moulding the team around him<\/p>\n

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen bending Red Bull to his will\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among the more tiresome aspects of this summer\u2019s \u2018silly season\u2019 has been the endless speculation over where Max\u00a0Verstappen might move to, even though in reality his options are starkly limited. It has long been a negotiating tactic of Verstappen\u2019s management team to plant stories in the compliant Dutch media about him potentially exercising performance clauses in his contract to move elsewhere, particularly since Red Bull\u2019s dominance started to slip in 2024. Treat \u2019em mean, keep \u2019em keen.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not clear where\u00a0Verstappen could go. Not that other teams wouldn\u2019t love to have a multiple world champion of his calibre \u2013 it\u2019s just that most of the top ones are broadly satisfied with the drivers they have, as evinced by the length of their contracts. Most of the \u2018silly season\u2019 stories published this summer have been driven by the requirement for various outlets to attract attention on social media or drive traffic to their websites.<\/p>\n

The most egregious example of this was the narrative linking\u00a0Verstappen with McLaren, where Lando Norris<\/a> is understood to be out of contract at the end of next season. Oscar Piastri<\/a> is contracted until the end of 2028. Nevertheless, there are still those in the F1 paddock so wet behind the ears that they genuinely believe someone having a coffee in someone else\u2019s motorhome \u2013 in full public view \u2013 constitutes serious contractual negotiations. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Verstappen\u2019s preference is to stay with Red Bull but he and his people feel some complacency has crept in over the past couple of seasons, resulting in a drop in competitiveness. He also remains unimpressed with the current F1 regulations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s understood that \u2018Team Max\u2019 is pushing for equity in the team as part of the negotiations for his next contract renewal. Publicly the pressure is on Red Bull to do better. \u00a0<\/p>\n

However, on the eve of the Dutch GP, Red Bull announced\u00a0Verstappen had re-signed with the team until the end of 2030 – duly ending said speculation. But the details of the deal will be key to hush the same chatter repeating in the future.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not be satisfied until we go back to having a race car that has the pace to win on merit,\u201d said team boss Laurent\u00a0Mekies ahead of the summer break. Long-term, that\u2019s the only way to keep Verstappen on side.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"F1's <\/p>\n

F1’s future power unit regulations are the next political hot potato<\/p>\n

Photo by: Honda<\/p>\n

Next-generation power politics ramping up<\/p>\n

Whether Formula 1\u2019s next-generation power units are introduced in 2031, after the current Concorde Agreement expires, or a year earlier, as\u00a0FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem is known to prefer, an agreement on the format is required by the end of this season to allow sufficient development runway. This, however, is pretty much all the stakeholders currently agree on.<\/p>\n

It has become abundantly clear that the present formula, where power output is split nearly 50\/50 between an electrical motor and the internal combustion engine, is fundamentally misconceived. What F1 and the\u00a0FIA are trying to do is juggle the process of reversing out of this scenario while pushing for the adoption of a more racing-focused ruleset when the current one expires. This has led to some difficult conversations because F1 still needs the presence and engagement of the road car manufacturers who make the engines and own several teams \u2013 but neither the governing body nor the commercial rights holder wants these companies to dictate the format.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

The early part of this season was dominated by wrangling over how to ameliorate some of the worst consequences of the new ruleset. In the coming months the stakeholders will be going at it over the next one. Ben Sulayem, for instance, is known to favour naturally aspirated V8s with negligible electrical input. Audi<\/a>, at the other end of the spectrum, is wedded to turbocharging. It\u2019s going to get messy.<\/p>\n

\"McLaren <\/p>\n

McLaren was back on top just before the summer break – but can it stay there?<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

McLaren getting back in the game<\/p>\n

Victory for\u00a0Lando Norris in Hungary was a powerful sign of McLaren\u2019s progress after beginning the season with a car that was some way off the works Mercedes. There had been those who felt McLaren\u2019s ascent to dominance from the mid-point of the 2024 season had been a statistical outlier given the pre-eminence of Mercedes and Red Bull-Honda in recent seasons. Granted, Mercedes never got on top of the chassis requirements of the ground-effect era, but its form early this season suggested its days of being beaten by its customers were over.<\/p>\n

Through testing and into the season opener,\u00a0McLaren joined Williams in expressing some disgruntlement over the transparency of communications with Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains. It was clear that there was a knowledge gap between the works team and its customers in terms of how to optimise the running of the new power units. But McLaren team principal Andrea Stella is a thoroughly pragmatic man who understands the importance of being inside the tent pissing out, rather than outside the tent pissing in.<\/p>\n

McLaren\u2019s Hungary win came on a weekend where the team applied another upgrade centred around a revised floor. The feeling has been that the MCL40 has been lacking efficient downforce compared with the works Mercedes, and isn\u2019t as biddable in slow corners as Ferrari\u2019s SF-26. But now it\u2019s clearly in the ballpark.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

More significant still is\u00a0McLaren\u2019s understanding of how to run the Mercedes power unit. It\u2019s significant that after the Budapest race Stella made a point of publicly thanking Mercedes HPP for its ongoing cooperation. Certainly Norris benefited on his pole position lap from emulating the Mercedes trick of lifting off the throttle shortly before the timing line to bypass the mandatory electrical ramp-down phase.<\/p>\n

Norris is 91 points behind\u00a0Antonelli in the title race. Verstappen\u2019s late-season renaissance last year tells us that such gaps aren\u2019t insurmountable\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Over <\/p>\n

Over the closing part of the season each team must weigh up when, and by how much, to switch focus to 2027<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bagnall \/ Sutton Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The development quandary \u00a0<\/p>\n

To pivot, or not to pivot \u2013 that is always the question in F1. In the budget-cap era that point where a team definitively switches development focus from this season to the next has become a much more difficult choice.<\/p>\n

When a team identifies baked-in conceptual shortcomings with its car, the logical choice is to abandon it early and focus resource on avoiding that on the next one. Easy enough for the midfielders or those at the tail of the grid \u2013 under the more equitable terms of the post-2020 Concorde Agreements, these teams are no longer beggared if they score only a handful of points or none at all. \u00a0<\/p>\n

For the\u00a0frontrunners there also comes a time to switch off the taps on the current car and preserve their competitive position for the season to come. But if the gaps are narrowing, that decision is less clear-cut. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Mercedes isn\u2019t looking quite as dominant as it was at the start of the season, despite that effective upgrade package applied in Canada. And its drivers are facing the prospect of picking up grid penalties for going beyond the annual quota of power unit components. Ferrari, meanwhile, has been busy applying frequent upgrades to its cars \u2013 as well as a power unit update facilitated by the first Additional Development Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) audit. \u00a0
Uncertainties therefore remain. Has Ferrari shot its bolt budget-wise? If so, Mercedes doesn\u2019t have to hurry its development strategy. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just need to be really strategic about when to bring the upgrades,\u201d said Merc boss Toto Wolff in Hungary. \u201cWhen do we think they will have the biggest impact on performance, rather than just throwing it in at every grand prix like in the past.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Some small but potentially significant aerodynamic changes are due for introduction next year, coupled with the more widely publicised tweaks to the power units, which will tilt the distribution of output from nearly 50:50 between the internal combustion engine and electrical motor to 58:42. That adds yet another incentive to get out of 2026 development early.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the September 2026 issue and subscribe today<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The second half of the 2026 F1 season is intriguing poised<\/p>\n

Photo by: Andy Hone\/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

We want to hear from you!<\/p>\n

Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes getting its house in order\u00a0 At the half-way point of the season, Kimi Antonelli leads Lewis Hamilton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82,300948],"class_list":["post-865967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-the-themes-to-watch-for-the-rest-of-f1-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865967","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=865967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}