That aside, the challenge posed by the Miami International Autodrome is the same, at least on paper. It’s a 5.421km, 19-turned track that winds its way around the carparks and roads that outline the iconic Hard Rock Stadium, and F1 is about to visit for the fifth time.

Despite its reputation as a ‘street’ or ‘temporary’ circuit, that’s one that arises from its characteristics more than its actual status. The permanent asphalt is built within the parking areas around the stadium and doesn’t actually have public roads integrated into its layout, though it does cross some public roads in places and runs close to Florida’s Turnpike road at points of sectors 2 and 3. But that asphalt is worked into a layout that has twists and turns taken at high speeds, long straights and close barriers - giving that street circuit feel.

Navigating those under the new regulations could get chaotic, especially early on over the weekend, which incidentally is also following the Sprint format: compressing the little time teams already have to adjust their setups and get to grips with things. That said, the FIA have extended FP1 to 90 minutes rather than the usual 60 to account for the time since the last race and the regulation changes that have been introduced.

Characteristic Considerations

Smooth asphalt & high evolution

With the Miami circuit being used only for F1 (barriers and surrounding infrastructure are taken down after the race) and also made of a special, low roughness and low abrasion asphalt, the grip has typically started out low before ramping up quickly and significantly as the sessions tick down.

In year one, 2022, the circuit was so low in grip, especially off line, that it prompted comments from drivers like Fernando Alonso that it was “not F1 standard” and led to the organisers re-surfacing into year two, 2023.

Since then, the evolution has come into play more - bringing the grip up - but it remains a low abrasion surface that puts relatively low levels of stress through the tyres which does limit degradation. An additional quirk of that surface, as we saw last year during the wet Sprint, is that it dries out very quickly. It prompted the drivers to come in to switch from the intermediates they’d started the 19-laps on to slicks, which isn’t something typically seen in these much shorter races.

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Thermal degradation

The main factor driving degradation is therefore the temperature. Track temperatures regularly exceed 50°C which can cause overheating of the rears particularly, and that has to be carefully managed and considered given that Pirelli are running the softest compounds in the range here once again.

That’s particularly the case through the middle, slower-speed section but the final sector with its long straight can help mitigate that effect over the race distance, even if it does make preparation of the tyres trickier on a warm-up lap in qualifying.

What’s also important to consider is how the dark colour of the track surface can lead to changes in the pattern of degradation over the day - during the afternoon, as the sun moves to be more indirect, there can be bigger drops in temperature impacting performance and degradation levels.

Good on the brakes & riding the kerbs

The track layout is one that emphasises the need for heavy braking at several points. Turns 11 and 17 are prime examples as they come at the end of very long straights where the tyres but also brakes have had an opportunity to cool. This year, they’re also the end points of two of the three straight mode zones.

It makes them key overtaking opportunities over the Sprint and Grand Prix, similarly to turn 1, but come qualifying they’re also places where things can potentially go wrong with a lock-up, which was a key feature of these cars into similarly heavy braking events over Bahrain testing, for example.

Another key consideration for the teams in setting up their cars will be the degree to which kerbs need to be ridden around the lap, specifically through the uphill, turns 14-15 ‘mistake generator’ chicane. It’s also a factor through the early corners, and while it may be less critical for these cars versus their stiffer, ground-effect predecessors, narrowing in on the right setup with them in mind will be important and will have to be done quickly.

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‘Harvest rich’

Given its heavier braking zones and slower latter part of sector two, even if there are long straights and quick corners, Miami is expected to sit on the more ‘harvest rich’ end of the scale. That will be a positive for teams and perhaps also for the level of performance we can expect to see, as there’s less likely to be the extensive super clipping or li-coing that we’ve seen at Australia or Japan so far, for example.

But that may make it a less than ideal test venue for F1’s new regulatory tweaks - including in assessing how well the increased power of superclipping (350kW versus the old 250kW) works at reducing driver workload on energy management, and how well reducing the overall level of recharge from 8 to 7MJ impacts the need for excessive harvesting techniques.

But what will be able to be assessed even so are the changes targeted at improving safety via reducing the speed differential between cars harvesting, cars boosting, and cars deploying.

What will also be made clear, as a result of the changes and the harvest-rich layout interacting, is whether qualifying is now a more conventional, ‘flat-out’ demonstration than it has been so far this year. With there being plenty of chances for the drivers to recharge, the need for extreme, strange tactics will already be mitigated. This, coupled with the reduced, more uniform deployment over the field over a single lap could mean we see these cars behave at their most ‘typical’ yet.

The Compounds

After taking the compound range softer for a number of races last year, including Miami, Pirelli have opted to keep that selection for this year. The C5 will be the soft, the C4 will be the medium, and the C3 will be the hard.

Strategy Corner

Strategy in Miami is straight-forward on paper, yet in reality, that plan can go awry very quickly due to the high likelihood of neutralisations here. However, what a straightforward race looks like was demonstrated last year as Oscar Piastri ran the one-stop to victory and, overall, the race was entirely a one-stop.

That was the case despite Pirelli’s decision to make the compound range softer than it had been there in the past; a decision made with strategic variation in mind. However, both the C3 and C4 showed limited degradation, with the latter, acting as the medium, showing “even less than expected” in the words of the then-director of motorsport for Pirelli, Mario Isola.

It meant drivers who had started on the medium could extend as far into the race as those on the hards to open the opportunity of boxing under the virtual safety car on lap 29, which included all three of the podium sitters.

A well-timed VSC or even full safety car could be pivotal in influencing race strategy again this year, and statistically they are not unlikely here - 50% of the four Miami Grands Prix have seen a full safety car.

Equally, race strategy could be heavily influenced by even a small increase or deviation in the expected low tyre degradation heading in. Should the medium prove to be less durable than it was last year, for example, then we could see a shift to two-stop strategies.

Assessing the likelihood of that over the Sprint will be critical for the teams, not only in deciding their strategic plans pre-grand prix, but also in how they manage their tyre allocation in light of what they find, which is already reduced by one set with the Sprint format.

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Fast Facts

Max Verstappen has 1.7x the points total in Miami of his closest rival on the points tally - 90 versus Charles Leclerc’s 52. It’s owing to his two wins here, the most of any driver, and 75% podium rate here, also the highest of any driver.

Of the four grands prix held in Miami so far, none have been won from pole position. That’s not the case for the two Sprints held here - the first was won by Verstappen from pole, even though the second was won by a non-polesitter, Lando Norris.

Miami remains one of very few tracks Lewis Hamilton has raced at, but is yet to win at. In fact, there are just five - Las Vegas, Magny-Cours, Miami, New Delhi, and Valencia - only two of which are on the current calendar.

The Miami Grand Prix kicks off with free practice one at 12:00pm track time on Friday 1st May. Here’s how the rest of the weekend shapes up, with all times in local:

• Practice 1 - May 1st - 12:00-13:30

• Sprint Qualifying - May 1st - 16:30-17:14

• Sprint - May 2nd - 12:00-13:00

• Qualifying - May 2nd - 16:00-17:00

• Miami Grand Prix - May 3rd - 16:00

This year, the five week gap in the calendar and the mixed success for some teams under the new regulations is bringing the phenomenon back, which not only gives us racing action to enjoy in F1’s absence but a chance to deep dive how others who’ve raced elsewhere before have fared…

Lance Stroll - GT3, Daytona

Lance Stroll is set to use this break in the calendar to contest the first race of the GT World Challenge Europe season at Paul Ricard from April 11th-13th, but it actually won’t be the first time he’s run in a different category during an F1 season.

Back in January 2018 when he was set to begin a second season at Williams, Stroll ran in the 24 hours of Daytona for the second time. With Jackie Chan DCR JOTA alongside Rosenqvist, Juncadella (now Verstappen’s 24h Nurburgring teammate!) and Frijns in an Oreca 07-Gibson, he finished 15th overall and 11th in the prototype class.

The aim of that outing was to, in his words, “step back and do something that’s a bit less high pressure” which is remarkably similar to his reasoning for entering into the GT World Challenge Europe race this year.

“I get to share the car with friends, so we laugh outside the car, enjoy ourselves inside the car, and the team is really great,” he told the series.

Equally though, with Aston Martin languishing at the rear of the F1 field at the moment, Stroll believes there’s an opportunity to win out over the “very competitive field” “even if it’s our first time and we lack experience” - something that isn’t really possible in F1.

“That’s also a big motivation for me to be here."

He’ll run an Aston Martin Vantage alongside Roberto Merhi and Mari Boya, which he tested for the first time at the Nurburgring last week.

Max Verstappen - GT3

Max Verstappen could perhaps be credited with bringing the potential for competing in other series during an active F1 season back to the forefront of the drivers’ minds. He’s always had an interest in racing beyond F1 which he fulfils with his Verstappen.com Racing and Verstappen Sim Racing teams, and last year that offered him the opportunity to contest his first GT3 race.

To earn his Permit A for the Nordschleife, Verstappen ran in the seventh round of the NLS season in a horsepower-restricted, ‘Permit B spec’, Porsche Cayman GT4. It was a race entry that came after ‘Franz Hermann’ had taken to the Nordschleife for a test earlier that year.

With that all important permit secured, Verstappen was able to make his GT3 debut later that month in a Ferrari 296 alongside Chris Lulham. They qualified third and ran to a victory on debut, with a 24 second margin back to P2.

The goal however remained to contest the 24h Nurburgring event which is something he’s set to achieve this year, and in preparation Verstappen contested the NLS2 race last month. With Verstappen Racing now a Mercedes-AMG customer, he team ran in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo alongside Juncadella and Gounon to a pole position in qualifying and win on track.

They were later stripped of the victory and disqualified for a technical infringement relating to their tyre use in qualifying which saw them use seven sets on race day as opposed to the permitted six.

Nevertheless, he and his teammates will return to the Nordschleife on April 18th-19th to run in the qualifiers for the 24-hour race before contesting it in May.

Fernando Alonso - IndyCar, Le Mans, IMSA, Dakar Rally

It’s well known that Fernando Alonso’s long F1 career has been broken up by a stint away from it in 2019 and 2020 to allow him to explore other series. But even before then, he had competed in IndyCar, Le Mans and IMSA.

His 2017 entry into the Indianapolis 500 was the first of these, coming during his F1 season with McLaren and actually on the weekend of the Monaco Grand Prix. Running a Honda engine in the back of his No. 29 McLaren-Honda-Andretti Dallara DW12 went about as well as his time running a McLaren-Honda combination in F1 had at that time, with a failure forcing his retirement with 21 laps to go after having led for a total of 27 laps to that point.

During his 2018 F1 season, which was his final with McLaren, he began a World Endurance Championship campaign with Toyota alongside ex-F1 drivers Buemi and Nakajima. The team entered all rounds that didn’t class with F1 weekends which saw them claim victory at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and then the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The campaign continued in 2019 during the first of his two seasons away from F1, and they claimed a second consecutive victory of Le Mans before ultimately winning the 2018-19 LMP1 Drivers’ Championship with five victories and seven podiums from eight entries.

Over the rest of his F1 hiatus, Alonso went on to run in the Dakar Rally, the Indy 500 again, and won the 2019 24 Hours of Daytona. It’s a career outside of F1 that’s largely been driven by his ambition to complete the triple crown - Monaco Grand Prix victory, 24 Hours of Le Mans victory and the Indy 500 victory - with the Indy 500 still being the final piece of the puzzle Alonso needs for the accolade.

Nico Hulkenberg - Le Mans

Nico Hulkenberg is another driver who’s tried his hand, very successfully, at the World Endurance Championship during an active F1 season.

In 2015, he ran in two rounds with Porsche - the 6 Hours of Spa and the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans. Driving alongside his teammates Tandy and Bamber in the latter, he took Porsche’s first victory in the event since 1998.

Lando Norris - Daytona

Norris trying his hand at another series didn’t exactly come during an F1 season, but just slightly before his maiden one.

In 2018 he ran in the 24 Hours of Daytona in a United Autosports Ligier JS P217 alongside none other than Fernando Alonso and Will Owen. It’s a race that largely goes under the radar alongside his achievements in F1, but one that earned him credibility and confirmed his potential at an elite level as he managed worsening, wet conditions overnight to take them to the lead over his stint.

While they eventually dropped to 38th overall and 13th in class, Norris proved he could match the pace and ability of his more experienced teammates over the outing, which Zak Brown has said was a key part of the decision making process in putting him up into an F1 seat at McLaren.

Bonus: Kimi Raikkonen - WRC

He may not be on the grid anymore, but we can’t look at F1 drivers racing elsewhere without mentioning the Iceman, Kimi Räikkönen. It’s a nickname that came from his cool, calm, quiet personality rather than his racing record necessarily, but in 2009 the Iceman took to racing on ice for real.

He ran in the World Rally Championship from 2009 to 2011 in a total of 21 rounds, making his debut at his home rally in Finland in 2009. While he ran to 15th overall, it prompted a full move away from F1 and to the championship for 2010 with the Citroen Junior Team. In 2011, he took part with his own team, ICE 1 Racing, earning 10th in the standings by the end of the season.

Did we miss your favourite F1 driver to other series story?

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What’s not changed?

There’s been an obvious static feature race-to-race at this stage of the year - Mercedes’ advantage. It’s ranged from as little as 0.115s over Ferrari in Melbourne to as much as 0.563s the Scuderia again in Shanghai, but at all three races they’ve led the pack.

At the back of the field there’s also been some consistency, mainly in the teams who are the backmarkers at this stage of the season. Cadillac and Aston Martin have consistently been over 3.5% off the pace of Mercedes’ at each grand prix, but Cadillac have hugely cut into their deficit to the benchmark as the weeks have gone on.

From race one in Melbourne to race three in Suzuka, they’ve progressed up from being 4.6% off the pace to that 3.5% position, moving them ahead of Aston Martin at the most recent two of the three races.

Again, in a similar story to the backmarkers, Williams’ position relative to the rest of the field hasn’t changed. They have however made small steps to find pace compared to Mercedes as the weeks have gone on, moving to be from 2.4% off to now 2.1%.

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What’s changed?

As usual, there’s more that has changed than hasn’t.

The pattern of competition out front has shifted quite significantly from race one to race three, moving from a clearer group of top four teams with a rift then back to the midfield in Melbourne, to a top group of just three teams by Suzuka.

That’s come about partly as a result of McLaren taking a step into being the second quickest team in Japan from having been third quickest in Melbourne (and not raced in Shanghai), but also from Red Bull dropping back. They began the season within 0.737s or 0.864% of Mercedes, but as of Suzuka, sat 1.258s or 1.338% away. As a result, and as played out on track versus Alpine in Japan, Red Bull’s battle has moved into being at the front of the midfield.

Who’s at the front of that midfield group has also changed. In Melbourne, Audi began their first season under the marque as the fifth fastest team, within 1.4s or 1.7% of Mercedes. But by Shanghai and then into Suzuka, Alpine held that role.

They were more heavily contested for it in Shanghai, with Haas, Audi and then Racing Bulls all within 0.479s of the Enstone team’s pace. The Japanese Grand Prix however, saw those three teams branch off into their own more tightly contested group with 0.329s between Alpine and Racing Bulls alone. Interestingly though, they’ve all sat within a fairly consistent range of Mercedes week-on-week - between 1.7 and 2.0% - despite the intra-group team order changing.

What might change?

What’s for near certain is that this competitive order will not be the same when F1 returns in Miami, not only because of the circuit difference, but because of what the teams will have been up to over this break.

Unlike the summer or winter breaks, there’s no regulation enforced downtime over this period given that it’s an absence of races rather than time off for the teams. That means that, again unlike those breaks, they won’t stand still and can work on upgrades, reliability fixes or operational factors to improve their position, and to build advantages or extend them. Every team and driver up and down the grid highlighted areas they wish to improve on over the break post-Japan, and their progress over this initial stage of the year, or lack of, will likely inform those.

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As Piastri said on the radio post-race, “turns out when we start these things, we’re pretty good”.

How one moment changed the picture out front…

But arguably the pivotal moment in taking that shot away from Piastri and moving it to be in the hands of the Mercedes of Antonelli was the safety car which emerged on lap 22 in response to Ollie Bearman’s heavy shunt into the tyre barrier at the entry to Spoon curve.

The incident is widely acknowledged to have been caused by the speed differential between himself and Colapinto ahead into the corner; a dangerous quirk of this regulation set in its current state. Thankfully, Bearman walked away from the 50G crash and was checked over at the medical centre before returning to the garage and his team, but it was an incident that created the pivotal reactionary moment of the race.

For some, like George Russell especially, it couldn’t have come at a worse time as he’d exited the pits less than a minute before the safety car did, but for others, like his teammate Kimi Antonelli, it was dream timing. He was in the lead and able to retain it through a ~10s pit loss compared to the typical ~22s under green flag conditions that Russell and Piastri had suffered.

For others though like Oscar Piastri, it sat somewhere in the middle. He’d boxed on lap 18 as McLaren felt it was necessary to bring him in and cover off any threat of an undercut from Russell particularly, but just Mercedes more generally. But that wasn’t a decision that had been prompted by a drop in pace or tyre performance for him, and so could have actually been unnecessary in the bigger picture.

What it did do was sacrifice his track position, which had been the lead of the race and with clean air, and effectively hand that advantage to Antonelli as Mercedes hadn’t blinked to bring him in to cover off the stops of Norris or Leclerc further back. It meant that, as mentioned earlier, Antonelli held the net lead he’d gained over the pitstop phase under the safety car.

Whether Piastri would have been able to hold the lead, had McLaren opted to prioritise track position and wait, over the full second phase of the race versus the Mercedes is, of course, an unknown.

Based on pace alone on the hard tyre, it looks doubtful, as Antonelli lapped an average of 0.493s quicker than Piastri from the end of the safety car period to the chequered flag. However, that has to be tempered with the fact that he had clean air, which he would not have had had he been behind Piastri, and its clear that the Mercedes W17 strongly benefits pace-wise from that factor.

George Russell’s average pace over the same phase of the race shows the impact of that. He was within a second of either Leclerc or Hamilton for the majority of it as they battled for the final podium place, and as a result was 0.553s slower per lap than his teammate.

So although the Mercedes have the lead for race pace once again this week, as they have done over every race so far, the field tightening up in Suzuka and both McLaren and Ferrari being in positions to more closely challenge them meant that lead was not as big as it has been, and seemed more sensitive to additional variables, like that clean air effect.

Race Pace

At a team-level, Mercedes sat just 0.216s clear of their closest rival, which this weekend had switched from Ferrari to McLaren - largely driven by Piastri’s pace given that Norris was 0.241s slower than him at a driver-level. However, Ferrari were not far off and sat 0.340s back from Mercedes’ benchmark average with Leclerc more able to utilise it than Hamilton who felt he “simply didn’t have the pace to compete”.

It’s a promising sign of the level of competition we might expect from here, with three teams in the fight out front more consistently. But what prevented that in the first place remains perhaps the biggest threat to it moving forwards - reliability.

Dropping back…

It’s getting to grips with the regulations and their impact on performance beyond reliability that’s preventing one team specifically from getting in that mix - Red Bull. It’s safe to say a huge rift appeared in Suzuka between their average pace and that of the teams in the front group. Verstappen and Hadjar’s combined average left them over 1.2s back from the benchmark, but the majority of that delta came from them to Ferrari in P3, at 0.918s.

In fact, Red Bull’s pace was much more closely matched with Alpine and that was both a consequence and cause of the battle that played out between Gasly and Verstappen, which saw Gasly finish P7 to Verstappen’s P8 with just 0.337s between them at the line. At a driver-level, Gasly’s own pace was very marginally quicker than Verstappen’s.

On Hadjar’s side, he also suffered from the safety car timing by boxing the lap before it came out which initially left him behind Hulkenberg’s Audi at the restart, and then Bortoleto’s further into the stint, before he was able to get by before losing out again to Hulkenberg in the closing stages, who had taken an extra set of hard tyres. “I had a good fight with the Audis”, he said, “but didn't have the pace to get passed [sic] them”.

It’s not “really where [they] want to fight”, as Verstappen said, but getting involved in these close battles will have allowed Red Bull to assess and gather data about how their car performs in them which will inform how they move forward from here in improving not only flat out performance, but raceability too.

A tightly packed midfield…

Perhaps as a result of the safety car condensing the field in the mid-phase of the race, but also of all but five drivers following the same medium>hard one-stop strategy, just over half a second (0.539s) split Red Bull at the front of the midfield group from Haas at the rear, whose average is somewhat compromised by Bearman’s DNF.

There were some drivers in this group, as there were out front, who benefited from the safety car timing and others who lost out, meaning that their result wasn’t necessarily a result of their pace potential.

Franco Colapinto was one of the latter, saying post-race that “those I was fighting with at the time ended in the points” while he finished P16. Arvid Lindblad was another who’d been running in the points over the first phase before losing out (P14), while his teammate Liam Lawson had the opposite experience - a tough first half with fortunate safety car timing promoting him to the points positions (P9).

At a driver level in the race pace that contrasting experience shows - less so for Racing Bulls where Lawson and Lindblad were split by 0.117, but more so at Alpine where Colapinto was 0.993s slower than Gasly as a result of spending the majority of his race following.

At Audi however it was a different story. The safety car worked in favour of Gabriel Bortoleto and Audi’s decision to hold him out for longer to avoid getting stuck behind cars on harder tyres. But while he initially stuck around P10 as the race restarted, he then lost out to Ocon, Hadjar, and his teammate Hulkenberg as his pace was 0.135s to 0.354s slower than those cars.

Nevertheless, in just their third race, getting two cars to the finish, one of which was inside the points with generally “encouraging pace”, as Mattia Binotto said, has to be taken as a positive for Audi.

Williams in ‘no man’s land’…

Between the midfield and the backmarkers we find Williams, who simply lacked pace both outright and as a result of their switching the race into a test session for Alex Albon. His pace, as a result, was almost three tenths slower than Carlos Sainz’s who was himself still over 2 seconds off the benchmark despite feeling he’d maximised the car.

“Realistically we are achieving what we can achieve and executing our races as best as we can”, Albon said post-race, “but we just need to get on top of some issues and get a bit more speed in the car.”

Vowles echoed that sentiment, saying “these next five weeks will be some of the hardest for us, purposefully so, as we dig deep and make sure that we come back with a car in Miami that is worthy of scoring points.” Even without points-scoring in mind, Williams’ aim has to be to close down to the midfield pack which currently sits over 4 tenths away to the rear or over 8 tenths to the front.

Three of four backmarkers finish

While it is still Cadillac and Aston Martin who bring up the rear of the field for pace, Cadillac are again out-ranking Aston Martin but this time not just as a result of neither Aston Martin seeing the chequered flag.

For the first time this year, Fernando Alonso finished a race and while Lance Stroll did DNF, that marks a big milestone for the team with Mike Krack, their Chief Trackside Officer, calling it ”a significant moment for the team and our technical partner, Honda, at their home race.”

But with reliability issues slowly being resolved, even if “the water pressure issue on the ICE of Lance’s car shows there is still much work to be done”, as Krack said, their inherent lack of performance is now being exposed.

It comes as Cadillac enjoyed their “strongest race so far this year”, in Sergio Perez’s opinion which was reinforced by Graeme Lowdon’s comments about them taking “another significant step forward” in terms of “execution and reliability” to allow both cars to finish for the second consecutive race.

Tyre Performance

As had been anticipated heading in, the one-stop medium>hard strategy prevailed over the field with all but five drivers following it and only Bottas opting to start on the hard instead of the medium.

While Pirelli had predicted that the soft tyre could have been used for a starting stint to capitalise on its grip advantage off the line or for a shorter closing stint, no team saw that as worthwhile. Alex Albon was the only driver to run it during the Grand Prix, but only as part of the testing he was conducting, not as part of his strategy.

Its use could have been viable though given how low degradation remained on Sunday, as it had been on Friday and Saturday. Neither the medium nor hard suffered estimated degradation loss of over 0.04s per lap - with the average sitting at 0.035s a lap for the medium and -0.009s for the hard.

The majority of drivers ran the medium tyre only up until the safety car, where if they hadn’t already boxed they then did, but given that Bottas had started on the hard and Alonso opted to move to a medium>hard>medium strategy, we can observe a spike in the fuel-corrected lap times where only their pace is feeding into the averages as the only two drivers to push the C2’s life beyond lap 22.

The hard tyre in contrast was able to run for the remainder of the race, again in the majority of cases from around lap 22 to the final lap 53 with very little, if any, pace drop off. While last year the same observation had resulted in a ‘processional’ race, this year the additional factors of energy management, overtake mode, and the differentials in those car-to-car kept that possibility at bay.

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That was also a result of the newly laid, smoother surface in sector one which this year has been extended into the second and third sectors and so far has helped keep tyre degradation under control. Where there has been graining, it’s not had a significant impact.

With that in mind, the optimal strategy this year remains that one-stop, but if the ability to push on the C1 is as high as it was last year even to the closing stages, with the smaller, more nimble cars but also power discrepancies car-to-car, that could give rise to more action and changes of positions than it did before.

One-stop options

Pirelli predict that the fastest strategies are one-stops but they could make use of all three compounds - with starting stints either on the medium, which is perhaps the more robust, conservative option, or the soft, offering a grip advantage off the line but a shorter, less flexible opening stint.

In the latter scenario, the pit window would open between laps 13 and 19, two laps sooner than those who pick the medium to start - which Pirelli feel will be the majority. But starting on the medium and running longer does keep the option of reacting to a neutralisation for the sole pitstop open.

Unlike last year, Pirelli don’t anticipate that drivers will choose to start on the hard tyre, even if they are out of position, as it sits at the very hardest end of their range and the grip it offers off the line is much poorer than the medium/soft.

There is a third one-stop option, but according to Pirelli’s simulations, it runs around ten seconds slower than the options involving the hard, given the consistency of pace that’s been observed on the C1 so far this weekend as it interacts with the grippier, yet smooth new surface. It involves using the soft and the medium, which offers the chance to use the grip advantage offered by the C3 to start but does come with the limitation of needing to manage the medium carefully to the end after boxing from lap 18 to 24. That could come at the expense of performance.

A two-stop option?

There is an opportunity for the undercut to be effective in Suzuka under a few conditions, including a clean out-lap into clean air and energy being managed efficiently over that. Pirelli see that that could be enacted by drivers running outside the points or out of position looking to bring forward their switch from the soft, if they’ve started on it, to move onto the hard sooner but then box again for a final set of C3s to carve through the traffic they got out of later on.

That’s a riskier option, but could come into play if a safety car period occurs as it has done at 50% of the last six races, or even a VSC which has been seen at 33% of the last six races.

What tyres do the drivers have left?

A few drivers are in a position to make use of that two-stop strategy with double new soft stints, should the opportunity arise - Bearman, Perez, and Verstappen. Given that the majority of drivers have a remaining allocation made up of one set of hards and between one and two new medium sets, plus a range of used softs, we’re most likely to see the medium-hard one-stop play out over the field.

But those who have an extra set of new mediums, including the Mercedes, Ferraris, Aston Martins, Cadillacs, and Alex Albon have more options open to them to box a second time, if needed, under neutralisations. The McLaren pair are in a similar situation, yet with an extra hard set over the field.

Will the weather play a role?

In short no, it’s expected to be warm, cloudy yet dry with a high of 22°C. Wind gusts are expected of up to 26km/h, and so far the wind has been impacting the balance of a number of cars this weekend. The cloud cover could work to keep degradation lower even in moderate temperatures.

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Mercedes’ long run strength appears again…

Andrew Shovlin’s assessment of Mercedes’ day being “fairly straightforward” might be an understatement, at least where their long run pace is concerned. After having gone 1-2 in the times in FP1 they were behind Piastri by the end of FP2 for single lap pace. But they had not only set an average pace over long runs in that session that was 0.749s clear of Ferrari as their closest competitor, they’d also done longer runs on all three compounds over the full day of running.

It indicates that while they admitted to having struggled more with the challenge Suzuka poses from an energy point of view over a qualifying simulation, that may have been less of a difficulty for them lap-after-lap. Although, looking at their lap times graphed, there were some fairly large jumps in pace over the stints on the mediums by Russell and Antonelli.

Overall however, Andrew Shovlin, the team’s Trackside Engineering Director, concluded that “we are in a reasonable place” in terms of pace, though he did acknowledge that “McLaren and Ferrari have posted impressive times during the day so we're not taking anything for granted.”

Ferrari versus McLaren?

A level of inconsistency of lap time over a stint was something seen elsewhere - Oscar Piastri particularly looked to struggle with it over his seven laps on the medium. As the only McLaren to do a longer run, he was left 0.095s adrift of Ferrari’s average pace over stints by Leclerc and Hamilton, indicating that the battle may have moved from Mercedes versus Ferrari, as we’ve seen so far this year, to Ferrari versus McLaren, at least for P2.

McLaren moving to have at least one car in the top four places in both sessions was a result of them “working hard to extract the maximum from the package,” according to their Senior Director of Racing, Randy Singh. He emphasised that they remain “realistic” however, even if George Russell did admit that there’s “no reason not to believe that [McLaren’s pace] isn’t genuine”.

But, at least at a driver level, Leclerc was Antonelli and Russell’s closest rival - his average time was 0.422s off Russell’s. Unlike Hamilton who only managed four laps in pace range, Leclerc was able to log seven, allowing him to conclude that “our race pace seems to be good so far”. They did struggle more for balance and stability over single laps which may leave them compromised in qualifying, yet more able to hold off a potential challenge from McLaren come Sunday.

Red Bull join the midfield?

With an average time of 1:36.138 over the 17 laps completed on the hard tyre by Hadjar and Verstappen, Red Bull are left over 1.2s adrift of Mercedes’ benchmark and, as such, closer to the midfield than the top three.

That may be a function of that hard tyre use versus the mediums that were run by the top three teams, but that wouldn’t entirely explain the almost four tenth gap to McLaren as the slowest of that top three. Instead, it appears to be arising from an overall tricky day for the team as both drivers struggled with balance - Verstappen only just scraped into the top ten in FP2 with his quickest lap, and Hadjar was left in 15th.

Their Chief Engineer Paul Monaghan said, “you can see from our pace that the car isn’t performing to the usual standards that we set ourselves and the overall lap time is not good.”

“It has been quite challenging, but we’ve identified some things that are wrong with the car and we particularly need to work to correct the balance and the grip.”

Red Bull have arrived in Suzuka with a “quite big” suite of upgrades, as Monaghan himself put it, yet he also said “these are working” and the issues they’re suffering are coming from “other aspects of the car”.

They’re known for their trademark Friday to Saturday turnarounds, and after the promise of one of those fell flat in Shanghai, they’ll be hoping they can make a return.

Less than 0.35s splits the midfield…

If we’re including Red Bull in that midfield group given that their deficit to Mercedes was 0.076s off Haas’ behind but 0.393s off McLaren’s ahead, then just shy of 0.35s splits the group of four teams within around a second and a half of the pace.

Aside from Red Bull, it’s Haas who lead that group after Ocon and Bearman logged the most joint laps of anyone with their race simulations at 20, all on the medium. Their intra-team race pace delta was as tight as their single lap delta by the end of FP2, with the former sitting at 0.045s and the latter at 0.034s.

But given that that leaves them within three tenths of the pace of both Alpine and Audi, Ollie Bearman felt that their goal overnight had to be “to find some lap time” and increase that gap given that overtaking is “very tough” here, or at least was last year.

Alpine, on the other hand, find themselves in that group after a much trickier day than Haas - both drivers found themselves involved in incidents over FP2, but overall Colapinto’s inexperience at the circuit showed to leave him 0.71s adrift of Gasly’s pace, who also felt the “feeling in the car is still not where I want it to be”.

“If we can make some small improvements, I think it will have a big impact to our end result,” he said, and he’s perhaps not wrong with how tight the field is.

Audi’s average time here is shaped by Hulkenberg alone as Bortoleto had to have a gearbox change, compromising his ability to complete a long run. Nevertheless, Hulkenberg’s pace over the 6 laps he did on the hard tyre was relatively strong, leaving them with a “positive starting point”, as he said.

Struggling with long runs, quicker on single laps…

Racing Bulls have found themselves in a similar position pace-wise to where they were during the Chinese Grand Prix, slightly adrift of the main midfield group, but ahead of Williams, Cadillac and Aston Martin. This time, it’s a result of Lawson’s pace alone as Lindblad was unable to complete a longer run, or much running at all, in the representative FP2 session as a result of a gearbox issue.

Lawson ran the medium tyre for 7 intermittent laps and the result is long run pace that doesn’t quite represent the qualifying pace he showed, which ranked him inside the top 12 over both sessions, with Lindblad also finishing P10 in FP1. That’s perhaps what’s behind Alan Permane’s, their team principal, comments about them being “right in the thick of the midfield battle”, as the race pace alone doesn’t quite suggest that.

It’s no secret that Williams’ start to 2026 hasn’t quite gone to plan and the team are contending with a number of issues, not least their car’s weight, and that reflects in their long run pace, which was on average 2.353s off Mercedes’.

Despite that however, and a slightly messier day all round, Albon ended FP2 in P8 with Sainz in P13 - both in that midfield mix over a single lap.

Carlos Sainz reflected that “we’re struggling with race pace in the high fuel runs”, yet Albon was positive that “the car is feeling better” so there’s perhaps opportunity for that to begin to reflect in the long-run pace as it has in the single lap pace.

The back markers…

Right at the back of the field, both over 3 seconds off the benchmark pace, are Cadillac and Aston Martin. Unlike Aston Martin, whose pace here is only represented by four laps on the soft by Alonso, Cadillac actually completed 16 laps in total with Perez on the hard tyre and Bottas on the medium.

As the line graph indicates, they were also consistent, especially with Bottas. After the session he said “we’ve gained a bit of load and stability with the upgrades this week, which gives me confidence that we’re going to see progress”.

Ultimately though, their sole source of competition at this stage remains Aston Martin, who had quite a strange day of running. Jak Crawford took over Alonso’s car for a rookie FP1 session, but as Fernando got behind the wheel in the afternoon, he spent the whole session evaluating the soft tyre - perhaps as its the compound they’re likely to have excess of come Sunday if they exit qualifying early again.

It leaves their true race pace as something of an unknown, but their aim for the weekend has to be to get both cars to the finish regardless of pace to ensure that their learnings and evaluations of the power unit reliability fixes they’re bringing week-on-week are maximised.

More recently though, it’s been Max Verstappen’s playground. He has dominated here for four consecutive years, claiming four consecutive pole positions and converting those to four consecutive wins - including one that was enough to earn him his second world title in 2022. Perhaps it’s that success that’s why he says it’s “one of my favourite tracks to race at”, or perhaps it’s because it’s traditionally been a track that rewards the ‘pure’ driving Verstappen enjoys most, and drivers who push their cars to their limits.

Heading into this year, how much the heavily increased emphasis on energy management under these new regulations will dilute that challenge is an unknown. It may mean we see the challenge change to one of finding the right balance and maximising the harvesting and deployment over the lap, lap after lap come the grand prix, particularly because this is set to be a more ‘energy poor’ circuit than Shanghai was last time out.

Nevertheless, the legendary corners that Sebastian Vettel famously said “must have been designed by the gods” remain - the esses, the Degners, Spoon Curve and 130R, to name a few - and attacking them in these more nimble, lower downforce machines in what are set to be lower grip, cooler conditions could create some real moments.

Characteristic Considerations

Lateral Loads

It’s those very corners, the continuous changes of direction they create over the lap, and the fact that only the hairpin (turn 11) and the final chicane (turns 16-18) are taken at speeds under 140km/h that mean the drivers, cars, and critically the tyres are subjected to high lateral loads here.

These loads and demands make Suzuka one of the toughest tracks on tyres on the entire calendar. In fact, Pirelli rank it 5/5 on their scale for lateral forces and 5/5 for tyre stress too, which is why they bring the hardest compounds here year after year.

The first sector is particularly demanding, with mechanical grip vital for navigating the esses and critically the lateral G-forces they exert as the driver, at least last year, takes them at a minimum speed of 200km/h. But they’re also sustained at corners like Dunlop (turn 7) as a long, flat-out left hander, the quick right hander that feeds into the slower 90-degree one during the Degners (turns 9-10), or Spoon Curve (turns 13-14) again as a long left-hander, double apex sequence. That feeds into the infamous 130R, a left-hander kink taken with the foot flat on the throttle and thus at speeds of 300km/h.

Impact on degradation…

Typically, high energy being exerted through the tyres would result in increased thermal degradation, which is something that’s been observed in Suzuka before and has previously influenced strategy here.

This year though, the impact of the new narrower width tyres on that has to be considered, as does the higher level of load already going through the rear axle due to the increased MGU-K deployment. But equally, straight mode zones are going to pull load off the cars, and therefore also the tyres, over two stretches of the lap.

Engine braking being much more powerful also means the rear brake discs and callipers are running cooler, transferring less heat into the rear tyres and therefore generating less thermal degradation on the rear axle.

All of these new-for-2026 factors combine to mean the challenge facing the tyres is changed, and that may mean a different strategic picture again too. But the true cumulative effect of them won’t become clear until some running, especially longer running, has been done over Friday practice.

Straight Mode Zones

Unlike the two races we’ve seen so far under these regulations, this event will only see two straight mode, lower-drag, zones implemented over the lap. The first will come down the main straight with the second coming on the run out of Spoon Curve towards 130R, but critically not through the high speed corner.

It’s quite a conservative approach to SM-zone use by the FIA but they will help mitigate the impact of the super clipping or lift and coast that is expected to be more prevalent here, to a level perhaps similar to that of Melbourne. But the lack of zones in other areas of the track and into key corners like Spoon Curve (T13) or on the run out of 130R to the chicane (T16-18) mean the teams have noted that front ride height and its impact on front floor legality could become a key consideration.

Tough to overtake…

Overtaking is infamously tricky in Suzuka, given that turns 1-2 are not the slow, heavy braking events they are at some other tracks and are also narrow. But, they are one of the only sequences that will offer a chance for a following driver within one second of the car in front to access overtake mode into them, as the main straight is one of the only runs where the 290km/h threshold is met. Getting a move done into the first corners is advantageous to a driver’s chances of sticking ahead given that they’re followed by the esses, which have to be taken single-file.

The other place where overtake mode is likely to be available is the run through and out of 130R. Although we have seen moves there before, given how narrow the track is and how close the armco barriers are it’s not a favoured place for overtaking. The chance of moves there could increase this year though, especially if it becomes a place where some drivers/teams are opting to superclip to harvest in preparation for the chicane that follows, which can be a key overtaking place. With it also being the detection point for overtake mode this year, we might expect to see drivers holding off more to have access to that for the next lap.

As we saw last time out in China though, moves are not only done where overtake mode is deployed, they can also come in key traction zones as they always have which could keep the hairpin as a prime, yet somewhat risky given the camber, spot for a move.

Back to super clipping?

Super clipping is likely to be back as a key buzzword this weekend after a week off from it being in the vernacular in Shanghai. With just five braking events over the lap of Suzuka, only one of which is truly heavy (the hairpin), energy recovery is going to have to come in a different way to feed deployment to maximise approach through the numerous higher speed sections.

That will likely include super clipping, the phenomenon of the MGU-K switching from deploying to harvesting while the throttle is still fully applied and thus ‘clipping’ the top speed, perhaps around Dunlop, the run from turn 12 to 13, then the long run out of Spoon (exit of T14) through 130R before the chicane. The esses may also provide an opportunity for harvesting, which could mean the speeds and approaches we’re used to seeing through these corners become more compromised versus previous years.

That may be a negative point come qualifying, but where approaches differ, it could generate some power discrepancies car-to-car during the Grand Prix which may offer up some more racing opportunities.

Note: As of 26/03, the FIA, the power unit manufacturers, and the teams have decided to reduce the maximum energy recharge per lap in qualifying only from 9MJ to 8MJ, to prevent the use of excessive clipping or lift and coast and maintain qualifying “as a performance challenge”.

The Compounds

Due to all of the demands and factors already mentioned here, Pirelli are bringing, as they always have done to Suzuka, the hardest compounds in the range - the C1 will be the hard, C2 the medium and C3 the soft, with the C1 actually making its 2026 debut this weekend.

Even with the intense demands placed on the tyres here, the first sector being resurfaced ahead of last year’s event meant graining was seen on the front axle, but that diminished progressively as the weekend went on and as track evolution ramped up.

This year, the resurfacing work has been continued with the final two sectors (from turns 7 to 17) now also having new asphalt. Pirelli expect this to be smooth, dirty and relatively low grip early on which could mean a similar graining versus track evolution profile to last year’s as the weekend progresses, but with the potential for it being more impactful on degradation this year given that the majority of the lap is affected now.

Pirelli have also highlighted the hardest and softest compounds as ones to watch this weekend as potentially the most influential in shaping what strategies are possible on race day. If the C1 hard offers good grip levels even on the smoother surface, and if the C3 is as consistent as it was last time in China, Pirelli believe that all three compounds could be viable race options.

Strategy Corner

Beyond the impact of the 2026-specific factors on degradation likelihood, temperature is still going to be an important one too, particularly when it comes to determining strategy. Last year, the cool temperatures combined with the new surface that gripped up by the race, even just in sector one, to create something of a tyre delta stalemate where pace simply didn’t fade off as their life extended. In fact, 14 of the 20 drivers put their fastest lap of the race on the board in the final 5 laps - demonstrating just how little the tyres’ ages impacted performance.

It led to very few changes of position over the field, but especially out front, as the hard tyre proved to be quick and suffer very little degradation. It also created a situation where the two-stop wasn’t even a consideration, with the laps teams pitted on also aligning to limit the potential for a tyre life offset.

Fifteen cars started on the medium, with two opting for the soft and three choosing to go for the hard. For the majority of the medium-starters, their one and only pitstop came from lap 19-24, but others like Sainz and Lawson were able to extend it to lap 33 to finish their race with a 20-lap soft stint. The top five finishers though opted for the medium-hard one-stop, and just 0.298s separated their race pace.

Fast Facts

After winning this race last year, Max Verstappen became the only driver to have ever won four times consecutively in Japan. If he gets a fifth in a row this year, he would also become the second-winningest driver in Japan - one win behind Michael Schumacher who sits on 6.

Pole position has played a vital role in Suzuka in the past, with 54.29% of race wins coming as pole conversions. The latest of these, again, was Verstappen in 2025.

Due to its traditional late-calendar slot, Suzuka Circuit and the Japanese Grand Prix are the venue/event that have seen the most world champions crowned - with 12 coming in Suzuka, and 13 in Japan (1 at Fuji Speedway in 1976 when James Hunt won).

The Japanese Grand Prix kicks off with free practice one at 11:30am track time on Friday March 27th. Here’s how the rest of the weekend shapes up, with all times in local:

• Practice 1 - March 27th - 11:30-12:30

• Practice 2 - March 27th - 15:00-16:00

• Practice 3 - March 28th - 11:30-12:30

• Qualifying - March 28th - 15:00-16:00

• Japanese Grand Prix - March 29th - 14:00

Since that first victory, his Verstappen Racing team has become a Mercedes-AMG Motorsport customer for their Nurburgring programme this year which includes NLS outings and entry into the Nurburgring 24 hours in May. That’s seen the Ferrari 296 GT3 he and Lulham drove switch for a Mercedes AMG GT3, and three new teammates join him - Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon, and (for the 24 hour race) Lucas Auer.

The first race of that programme was this weekend, the NLS2 - what would have been the second race of this year’s NLS had the first one not been cancelled due to adverse weather.

136 cars entered over around 20 different classes, with Verstappen’s Car #3 part of the top class, SP9, alongside 25 other cars and 71 other drivers. Come qualifying and they’d proven to be the top of that class, and the whole field. It was Verstappen’s lap that set their quickest, and therefore final time for the team as he found a window with minimal traffic and no code 60 - lapping the 24.358km layout in 7:51.751s, or 1.974s quicker than P2.

Race Report

Verstappen took the first stint as well and held the lead at the start before losing out to the veteran Audi GT3 driver Christopher Haase on the first lap, and he then spent most of his opening stint looking for a way to regain the lead. The gap hovered anywhere from within a few tenths to a few seconds over that period, with Verstappen eventually finding a way back to P1 just before the pair came in for their first stops.

The Audi came back up to the top spot over the pit phase, before Juncadella was around the car, now driven by Haase’s teammate Nico Hantke, as he opened his stint post-driver swap. From there, he extended their lead while running a longer stint than their competitors, and as that concluded, it was Gounon’s turn to get behind the wheel.

His stint saw him battle with the BMW of Dan Harper, who did briefly get ahead before clattering into the side of a Porsche Cayman to earn himself a penalty lap - allowing Gounon to break away and continue building their lead.

Going for longer middle stints allowed Verstappen’s final stint, and final pitstop minimum time to be shorter, as he switched with Gounon to get back on track for the final 45 minutes. Over that time he build the margin over P2 up to the over one minute it stood at as he took the chequered flag for the team in first place.

While the main goal of the outing had been to prepare and practice key parts of the race like pitstops and driver changes while getting to grips with the car and gaining valuable track time, Verstappen couldn’t help but find it “super enjoyable”.

“The team also prepared the car really well, so we could do some decent testing. They made me feel really comfortable with the car,” he said, “so yeah, really good experience for me.”

Gounon added that “it feels amazing”, before going on to praise his team. “The story is exceptional, my two teammates were exceptional, and the team also. So it feels great, honestly. Max is just so amazing, so humble. I just feel like I have a top teammate next to me.”

Juncadella reflected on the win as a “great start from Max in this project, and me also to be back with Mercedes-AMG in a very competitive car... Yeah, it’s great."

Things take a turn…

However, two hours after the race and about two further hours before the news broke publicly, the technical commission conducted its routine review of the ‘Tyre App’ or log of tyre use over the race and weekend. It was found that the #3 entry with Verstappen Racing had used seven sets of tyres on race day, which is one more than the allowed six.

Technical infringements in the NLS are black and white issues, and as such, the stewards disqualified the team with the BMW M4 GT3 of Dan Harper and Jordan Pepper inheriting the win instead.

Team Principal of Winward Racing, who ran the Verstappen entry, Christian Hohenadel said, “The disqualification hurts. Unfortunately, a mistake was made within the team that forced race control to retroactively disqualify the winning car.”

“I would like to apologise to everyone who was rooting for us. We will now thoroughly analyse the day, meticulously prepare for the remaining races, and work toward the ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring with full concentration.”

Stefan Wendl, Head of Mercedes-AMG Customer Racing, explained further, saying that the error had come about during qualifying, “when multiple driver and tyre changes were practiced”.

Despite them leaving without the win, Verstappen and his team have gained valuable preparation, understanding, and track time ahead of that critical bigger race in May - something Verstappen emphasised repeatedly over the day as their principal aim of participating.

There is also an opportunity for that preparation to continue ahead of the 24h. With the break coming up in the Formula 1 calendar with the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix not taking place in April, Verstappen is “looking into” whether he, and his team, could partake in NLS3 on April 11th and look to put things right.

Race Pace

Haas and Alpine move up…

While the Mercedes and Ferraris finished 1-2 and 3-4 in the Grand Prix, with Antonelli getting the best of Russell to claim his maiden grand prix win and Hamilton finishing ahead of Leclerc to take his maiden podium in red, behind them were Bearman and Gasly in P5 and P6, respectively.

The delta between the top two teams out front did grow, from the 0.115s average per lap it had been in Melbourne to 0.563s per lap in Shanghai. But with neither McLarens in play as separate issues with their power units prevented them getting to the grid and Red Bull suffering a “disaster” of a weekend in Verstappen’s words, that saw him retire later in the race, it was Gasly and Bearman who were their closest ‘rivals’ for pace.

They were between 1.260s and 1.361s a lap off Antonelli’s benchmark, which at a team level with Colapinto and Ocon in the mix put both Alpine and Haas within just over 1.6s of Mercedes, but even with that relatively sizeable delta, it demonstrates something bigger in the picture of the season.

Just being in the race is critical at this stage of this new regulation overhaul, the scale of which is causing teething problems and making reliability much more of a defining factor than it has been in recent years. That will change as the year progresses, but at this point, it’s rewarding teams and drivers who can get to the grid, keep things clean and see the flag - so much so, that Bearman and Gasly now rank in the top seven of the driver’s standings.

It’s a factor Haas team principal, Ayao Komatsu, spoke to after the race, emphasising that being able to do so is not a fluke: “We’ve always said, in Melbourne as well, keep it simple. We need to focus on our own race and get the best out of it in case something happens in front, and that’s exactly what we did.”

“I really believe we got that P5 absolutely on merit, and that doesn’t happen overnight. That’s an accumulation of effort from previous years, the parallel development of cars last year, hitting shakedown, and we’re learning every day.”

It may have been Bearman and Gasly grabbing the top results, but Colapinto was also in the points with Alpine for the first time too, with a P10 finish after fighting back from contact with Ocon. Ocon himself missed out, ending in P14, but Haas felt that was down to being “unlucky” with an error from the team during the pitstop putting him “in a position that he shouldn’t have been in,” according to Komatsu. Even so, his pace was less promising than Bearman’s - ranking him 12th fastest, just over 2s off the benchmark and almost seven tenths slower than his teammate’s average.

One car in the fight…

Again, reliability became a theme within the midfield too, as had been the case in Melbourne. Audi and Williams were two teams to have just one driver in the mix over the Grand Prix, with a “technical issue” preventing Bortoleto from seeing the start and a hydraulics problem costing Albon the same opportunity.

That left Hulkenberg as the only representative of Audi’s pace, which looked similar to Bortoleto’s in Melbourne in how it compared to the front runners - at 1.811s per lap off Antonelli. Sainz also left Williams in a similar window to where his and Albon’s joint pace had been the week prior - at 2.4s slower than the benchmark.

It’s not where either team wants to be, though Audi look to be in an overall better position for pace even if various issues prevented a points-finish for Hulkenberg in Shanghai, while Sainz claimed Williams’ first of the year. He suffered a poorer start, something his team principal Jonathan Wheatley highlighted as a key area of improvement for them, but also a 16-second pitstop which was what ultimately took him out of contention in the end.

On the other hand, Sainz’s result was enabled by, in his words, “a strong start, effective tyre management and good defending at the end of the race against Colapinto.” Williams have acknowledged that for points finishes to come at this stage, they’re going to need the stars to align over the race and earn them through a drive given that “we’re not in a position to score points on pure pace at this point in the season”, as Sainz concluded.

Racing Bulls hot on the top team’s heels…

Red Bull’s woes in Shanghai were somewhat masked on race day by Hadjar earning a P8 finish and his first points for the team. He felt it was a “shame” that he hadn’t been able to bring home more than the four he did as he’d put in a fighting race: coming back through the pack after a rear snap send him spinning by getting in some good overtakes. Even with that, his pace was slower than Verstappen’s who ran around ten fewer laps given that he didn’t see the chequered flag.

Interestingly though, Hadjar’s pace sat within 0.038s of Liam Lawson’s as the lead car from the sister team. Lawson actually finished one place ahead of Hadjar, in P7, and felt his pace was “strong towards the end” on the hard tyre. It paints an interesting picture of how the two teams are adapting to this new regulation set, even if they share a number of commonalities technically, including their RBPT power units.

Tyre Performance

The Sprint the day before the Grand Prix had shown the medium tyre to be suffering from quite severe graining and pace drop off, although for some cars more than others. Even with that in mind, Pirelli predicted a one-stop race as the optimal given that the hard tyre was believed to be much more stable.

That’s exactly what came to fruition, with almost all cars starting on the medium before moving to the hard for a long final stint. The length of that hard stint was extended by the timing of the safety car for Stroll’s stoppage on track, which simply pulled most medium-starters in to box sooner than they’d planned for their only stop.

The hard tyre was remarkably consistent even with the additional ten or so laps on top of what Pirelli had felt would be the optimal stint length for it. Degradation estimates based on fuel corrected lap time averages indicate that it was getting 0.01s quicker per lap, while the medium was dropping off by 0.086s, just slightly more than the soft which was only run by two drivers and sat at 0.076s of deg per lap. It meant that while some teams may have been prepared to switch to the two-stop race and were waiting for a drop off from the hard to trigger that, it never came and so the stint kept extending.

In terms of pace, the medium was slower than the hard - by around four tenths per lap, and while the soft was quickest, its heavier degradation and shorter lifespan as a result made it less favourable.

Graphing these figures really demonstrates the compound differences well - the line for the hard tyre is almost flat, even as the stint reaches 47 laps. Pace on the medium, in contrast, quickly ramps up.

Although the majority of drivers benefitted from the stability of the hard tyre for their final stints, there were a few who opted to start on it and stay out over the safety car period, going longer into the race. Colapinto, Ocon and Lindblad were three of these who benefitted the most, at least initially, rising up the order to be splitting the Mercedes and Ferrari cars out front. However, even with the pace consistency of the C2, a tyre life offset did make a difference and allowed those on a newer hard to come past (although the impact of that delta was likely compounded by the inherent pace differences of the cars).

But what was maybe most striking about how those results came about was how the huge delta and rift Mercedes and Ferrari have to the rest of the grid at the moment created a magnified not only inter-team battle, but intra-team too.

That boiled over in the mid-phase of the race as we saw Hamilton and Leclerc going toe-to-toe, with the new overtake mode dynamics giving rise to passing and re-passing between the two for several laps. Keeping ahead by the conclusion of the battle shaped Hamilton’s podium result for obvious reasons, but it also had a role to play in Antonelli’s result, intertwining these two firsts together…

How we got there…

The Ferraris, once again, had the superior launch off the line and that allowed them to get in front of a Mercedes each until lap two, when Antonelli made it around Hamilton for the lead and Russell was around Leclerc for P3. It took Russell another two laps to take P2 from Hamilton, but that put them into Mercedes and Ferrari pairs, 1-2 and 3-4, respectively.

They ran like that, with the gaps building between the pairings until the safety car emerged for a stranded Lance Stroll. Unlike they had done in Melbourne, Ferrari responded to that by mirroring Mercedes’ strategy - all four cars came in to switch to the hard tyre via two double stacks - which would leave them evenly matched in terms of a tyre delta to the end of the race.

While Antonelli remained in the lead after boxing, Russell, Hamilton and Leclerc’s positions were split over the three cars who’d opted to stay out as they’d started on the hard tyre - Colapinto who sat P2, Ocon who was P3 and Lindblad in P6.

The track went green again as the safety car came in on lap 14, and later that same lap Hamilton worked up to P3 by overtaking the Haas and Leclerc moved up a place around Lindblad. Leclerc then made it around Russell too, to make the order ANT-HAM-LEC-RUS in P1 through P4 once the rest of the drivers who’d stayed out had been cleared.

Although there was still a gap of over two seconds between the Ferrari teammates, out front it was much smaller as Antonelli struggled to get his hard tyres to come to life at the restart while also under pressure from Hamilton.

There was also a similar sized delta from Leclerc back to Russell, but from lap 17 to 22, Leclerc worked to close down to Hamilton all while Russell hung within overtake mode range of him.

The battle begins…

With Hamilton then having dropped back from Antonelli, he became vulnerable to Leclerc’s attack when that gap crossed into the critical <1 second threshold for overtake mode to be available to the car behind. But what perhaps made the battle so thrilling, but also sustained, is that the key overtaking opportunity presented by the turn 14 hairpin would leave the driver overtaken behind at the the overtake mode detection and activation points in and out of turn 16, the final corner. That left them able to use it back on the driver ahead down the main straight, setting up a move into the first corner sequence.

That alternating availability of overtake mode and the passing and re-passing it gave rise to between the Ferraris had a sizeable effect on the Mercedes’ races. First, it made life very difficult for Russell who himself had stuck within a second of the battle. With all three cars on equally aged hard tyres, the Mercedes being quick on the straights but the Ferraris quick in the corners, and there being two of them versus one of him, Russell said getting past was “a little bit challenging”.

As such, he effectively had to wait for the gap between the Ferraris to exceed one second so there was no overtake mode for them to defend from him with.

But the impact of that delay, plus the Ferraris themselves losing time in switching position repeatedly, was that Antonelli could build a much needed gap out front. By the time Russell was around Hamilton on lap 28, but then also past Leclerc by lap 30, the gap between the two Mercedes sat at 7.5 seconds. The intra-Ferrari fight did continue beyond then, and in fact up to lap 42, but had Russell been around them sooner, maintaining a lead would have been much trickier for Antonelli as even Russell admitted that getting caught up in it for as long as he did “gave [him] no chance” at the win.

Controlled to the finish…

Just shy of eight seconds doesn’t sound like much of an advantage to have with 27 laps remaining, but once the battling had calmed down, all of their lap times had to too as the focus switched to managing the hard tyre to the end.

The final phase (lap 28 to 56) saw Russell lapping quickest with Antonelli just 0.066s slower, but Hamilton was over six tenths back for pace and Leclerc was over eight tenths off - a demonstration of just how much further ahead the Mercedes is at this stage of the year.

The relatively even pace between the Mercedes meant Antonelli’s margin out front remained fairly consistent, while the pace delta to Ferrari meant Russell was able to extend a huge 19.7s gap over them, who themselves then had over 28 seconds behind to Bearman who finished P5.

Having such a lead allowed Antonelli a margin for error, which proved critical as he locked up on one of the last tours of the circuit: a mistake that closed his winning margin over Russell down from over nine seconds to just over five by the flag, and one that was perhaps a brief reminder of his relative inexperience after a performance to that point that had not shown evidence of it at all.

Speaking of that incident post-race, Antonelli said, “there’s so much that I’ve learned, but first of all, it’s never to relax too much because today it went ⁠well, but ​it could have been worse.”

"Just always try to ​stay on point and keep the focus because today at the end I opened the room for mistakes, and the mistake ​happened.”

That shouldn’t take away from the stunning, controlled, calm drive he put in out front effectively from lights to flag, and there’s an almost poignant feeling about his maiden win being closely linked to Hamilton’s maiden podium at Ferrari, at a time where he seems rejuvenated by this regulation set and the opportunity it has presented to him.

They may be at two very different points in their careers, but for Antonelli this win has now brought him equal with his more experienced teammate for victories this year, and in doing so has made a battle between them seem very possible. If the advantage they’ve shown so far this season grows, that might well be the battle for the title.

And on Ferrari’s side, the stunning race craft shown by Hamilton and equally by Leclerc was striking. Neither driver was willing to yield when it came down to the nitty gritty, with pride and maybe team priority on the table, and Fred Vasseur made it clear post-race that denying them that fight would have been “unfair”.

“I trust both of them and I didn’t want to ask them to freeze the positions, because that would have been unfair,” he said. “They are professionals and today’s battle was good for the team and good for the sport.”

It may have been good for the team at this stage, but should their gap to Mercedes close, particularly if that closing coincides with an opening of the gap they have over the rest of the field, battling as they did could become more costly.

Mercedes have a clear advantage in qualifying trim, but as the fuel goes in and the laps go up, Ferrari appear able to close in on them and challenge more closely. The early battle between Hamilton, Leclerc and Russell proved that, as does their race pace by the end of the Sprint.

Just shy of half a second covered all four drivers from the two teams, with the biggest margin of that coming between Leclerc and Hamilton rather than between the teams themselves - an average of 0.266s. Part of that is perhaps coming from the Ferraris struggling more with their tyres, which, as Fred Vasseur said, has to be a key consideration for them over the grand prix beyond the opening stages and initial phases where the battles are closer.

“In the race tomorrow we will try our best, but Mercedes still have a straight line speed advantage, so that it’s quite difficult to fight them. So far, we have seen that we can fight them for the opening laps of the race, but then the risk is to pay the price with the tyres. Let’s see if we can push them for longer than that tomorrow.”

Red Bull can’t find their usual turnaround…

While McLaren were the team to join Mercedes and Ferrari in the top three, extending that to a top four does bring Red Bull into the mix but with a monstrous deficit, not only to Mercedes’ benchmark, but to McLaren too. Verstappen called their first day in Shanghai a “disaster” and given the parc fermé period that covers overnight into the sprint, their chances of a recovery then were slim. It reflects in the pace shown by the two cars over the 19 laps, which places Verstappen and Hadjar 1.8 and 2.3 seconds off Russell as the quickest on average, respectively.

What’s particularly concerning about those deltas is how they compare to those of the Racing Bulls drivers, and especially Lawson. He followed a one-stop race over the sprint on the hard tyre, but even with that compound and stop number difference to Verstappen, Lawson was only around two tenths slower. Hadjar did remain on the soft tyre from the start to the finish, but boxed for a newer one under the safety car, which left him to finish P15 and with pace slower than Lawson. Yet, it’s important to note that he had also suffered damage from early contact with Antonelli.

But even with this poorer pace, the hope for a trademark Red Bull Friday-to-Saturday turnaround into the break in parc fermé remained. Unfortunately it never came though, leaving Verstappen to repeat the “disaster” label to sum up his day as both he and Hadjar qualified P8 and P9 respectively - near exactly where they did for the sprint.

“Going into the Qualifying session, we changed a lot on the car but it didn’t make much difference unfortunately,” Verstappen said.

“It is very complicated at the moment and quite difficult to drive for me to get a good reference in and build on this, so each lap is tricky.”

“I hope that tomorrow we can be a little more competitive, but let’s see what happens."

Nothing in it in the midfield

Beyond the huge rift that sits ahead of Red Bull, from them backwards there was very little in it between the midfield teams for pace over the 19 laps.

Just 0.176s split Racing Bulls at the front of that group from Alpine at the rear of it, which is interesting given the split in how each team reacted strategically to the safety car. Sainz was another driver to run the full race on the hard tyre, while Ocon, Bearman, Bortoleto and Gasly ran from start to finish on the medium without boxing. Others like Colapinto and Albon then ran the medium start to soft finish that was followed by the top six drivers for pace.

While the impact of these differences on their pace was minimal, they may have a larger impact on the strategies open to them over the grand prix through their tyre allocation.

Any driver who ran the hard will have gained valuable knowledge about its behaviour, yet also will have sacrificed their ability to run a double stint on it or respond to a neutralisation during the grand prix. Equally, by running on just one medium over the sprint, a driver may have suffered higher graining impacting their pace here, but they may have saved a soft set for the grand prix, potentially for a starting stint.

The tyres are suffering…

The feasibility of a soft opening stint however will potentially be limited by graining, which was rife over the field through the sprint. The cold conditions likely fed into that, as the track temperature hovered around 13°C, but the front limitation and particularly the limitation on the front left came to fruition for most.

However, on Friday, Pirelli noted that the impact of that graining on overall wear “remains limited”. Whether that remains the case and what its impact will be on stints beyond 19 laps, or mostly beyond 14 racing laps given the neutralisation, is unknown however.

The race could be the one-stop the Sprint wasn’t…

Even in light of the graining seen, Pirelli predict that the quickest way from lights to flag in the grand prix is the one-stop: calling it “clearly the fastest for tomorrow”.

That will, of course, have to make use of the hard tyre but the decision to start on the mediums or softs before switching to the longer, final hard stint will depend on grid position and whether a driver feels willing to play a more aggressive game.

But in light of the unknowns around tyre wear, and particularly of the hard’s ability to go for the over 40 laps Pirelli feel it will have to to make a one-stop work, a two-stop could appear if drivers find the tyres tougher to manage or if they have the allocations to allow it.

Any drivers with two new hards remaining could be candidates for a two-stop race, with a double hard stint to finish, but equally a late neutralisation could open the door for a late medium or soft stint.

It does leave them all from within 0.332 and 0.719s of Antonelli as the second placed Mercedes, with a further almost three tenths to Russell from there. The evidence from the, albeit very limited, race pace simulations done in FP1 suggests the gap could remain similar over the Sprint…

As we’ve come to expect from Mercedes, they put a more significant emphasis on longer running than any other team, with Antonelli and Russell completing eight and nine lap runs respectively. Every driver ran the medium tyre, giving us a solid basis for comparison, but even so Mercedes’ average pace leaves them 0.672s clear of McLaren’s.

The tricky part of knowing where Ferrari sit in that picture in being able to progress forward to McLaren or further forward to Mercedes, is that neither Leclerc nor Hamilton completed meaningful race simulation laps.

The Ferrari powered car that did though, Bearman in his Haas, showed impressive pace. The five laps he logged put him clear of Norris’ average pace, but still over 1.2 seconds off that of Antonelli as the quickest. With Ocon’s pace also on the higher ranking side, their combined average puts Haas as the third quickest team.

And aside from Ferrari lacking long run data, it’s Red Bull’s poor showing that has opened up room in the ranking for new teams to push into the top four (at least temporarily and in these specific circumstances).

Verstappen called their Friday running a “disaster” and his longer run pace was on par with Bottas’ in the Cadillac, as a demonstration of how far off it was from his, and the team’s, expectation of their place in the field. Hadjar’s pace leaves him another around a second back from his own teammate, putting Red Bull as a team almost 0.8s slower than their sister-team in Racing Bulls, but also as second slowest overall with very inconsistent times on top of that.

That’s unlikely to be a true representation of where they will be come the Sprint itself or the grand prix on Sunday given the break in parc ferme and the opportunity that presents for a shift in setup, but it is undoubtedly a representation of the way the “risks” they took for setup today impacted their performance.

In the midfield pack, the field spread is much less than it is even within the front runners.

Alpine, Williams, Audi and Racing Bulls’ averages are split here by around 0.8s and given that these drivers have all, generally, qualified near each other for the Sprint we could be set for some genuine fighting for position between them over it. However that should be caveated by the fact that some teams, Audi particularly, have very limited long run laps to go off, and others, such as Williams or Racing Bulls, only have data from a single driver.

Even so, the pace shown over a single lap in sprint qualifying and seemingly also over a longer run in FP1 by Gasly was enough to leave him top of the midfield. Adding Colapinto into the picture does pull Alpine’s average back more, but Gasly’s performance indicates that they found something on from Melbourne where he finished P10 in the Grand Prix.

"I’ve been feeling good in the car, there’s definitely more potential than we’ve seen in Melbourne,” he said, “so I’m confident [about points].”

Aston Martin head into the Sprint as something of an unknown given the lack of longer run data we have from them, and as expected for their second race, Cadillac sit as the clear backmarkers.

The picture from here…

The Sprint is set to provide us with a clearer picture again of the competitive order this weekend, particularly with the grand prix in mind. It will also give the teams greater insight into the tyre behaviour they’ll have had a taste of over these shorter runs, which Pirelli said is following the graining that’s been typical for Shanghai in recent years.

That’s been more pronounced over the front axle, as expected, and even more so on the front left than right, also as anticipated, although Pirelli have stated that the impact of that graining on overall wear “remains limited”.

The Shanghai International Circuit itself was designed by Hermann Tilke, a renowned circuit designer behind many favourites on the F1 calendar including Yas Marina Circuit, Bahrain International Circuit, Circuit of the Americas and most recently the Las Vegas Strip Circuit. Tilke modelled the design for the venue loosely on the Chinese “shang” character, meaning ‘upwards’ or ‘up above’, and that’s created a layout that’s a technical combination of high and low speed. Historically, it’s one that’s been dominated by one driver.

Although Michael Schumacher still holds the race lap record in Shanghai since it was set back at the inaugural event in 2004, it’s Lewis Hamilton who’s stood on the top step after the grand prix the most at six times, and of course he also claimed victory in the Sprint here last year. He also leads the way for pole positions, podiums, fastest laps, laps led and points earned here - making it a real ‘Lewis track’.

Characteristic Considerations

A different recovery/deployment profile

Compared to Albert Park, the lap of the Shanghai International Circuit is likely to have a very different, perhaps more balanced energy recovery/deployment profile. There are more low speed corners and sequences which should offer the drivers increased chances for harvesting, however, those are also balanced with higher speed corner sequences and one of the longest straights on the calendar.

It’s that balance, but also presence of heavier braking zones out of the high speed, that puts Shanghai into a category of circuits where the FIA should be able to offer the maximum recovery per lap of 9MJ without the drivers needing to use excessive lift and coast or other harvesting techniques to meet it.

That should mean we get insight into a new performance profile for these cars this weekend, one that perhaps places them closer to their best over the majority of the lap than was the case in Melbourne.

Smooth surface

The surface at the Shanghai track was relaid ahead of last year’s Grand Prix and the result was very smooth: giving higher grip and reducing lap times. That sounds positive, but it can also give rise to significant graining which was observed over Friday and Saturday’s running in 2025, particularly on the front axle which is already under increased stress here. Into Sunday, track evolution mitigated the effect more. A year later, and Pirelli believe that this surface should have ‘aged’ to bring the grip levels down and with it the likelihood of graining, but it still could be a factor for the teams to watch.

Heavy on the brakes

The lap of Shanghai features a couple of braking zones that see the drivers, at least in the last era of car, drop from speeds north of 300km/h down to under 100km/h. Given that this year these are out of straight mode zones, that top speed could be higher again.

The most notable of these is turn 14, the right-hander hairpin that comes at the end of the 1.1km long back straight, but the runs down the much smaller straights into turn 6 and then 11 are also heavier braking events.

While these bode well for the harvesting opportunities, they are similar to the braking zones in Bahrain where we saw drivers frequently locking up. These 2026 cars are more prone to lock ups as the rear brake discs are running colder given the bigger role harvesting is playing in slowing them into corners. It means that when the drivers do press the brake, they’re not in the optimal operating window.

Managing that and the potential impact of numerous lockups on tyre allocation, which is already a key variable to a Sprint weekend, could be a real challenge.

Straight mode zones/Overtake mode activation

While under the last regulation set, Shanghai had just two DRS zones - down the main straight and the long, back straight - this year, there will be four ‘straight mode’ zones.

Those will include the old DRS zones but with the addition of the run from turns 4 to 6 as the second one the drivers will encounter over the lap, and the run between turns 10 and 11 as the third. Given that increase and the role of SM zones in compensating for the drop in lap time with the regulation turnover, Pirelli have stated that the performance simulations they’ve received from teams indicate that lap times could be similar to last year’s. That saw pole position achieved with a time of 1:30.641 which, with the new surface, was a 3.019s improvement on 2024.

In addition to the straight mode zones, the new for this year overtake detection and activation points will come into and out of the final corner, turn 16.

The Compounds

Pirelli’s selection for the weekend remains unchanged since the circuit’s return to the calendar two years ago, which this year puts it in the middle of the range with the C2 as the hard, C3 as the medium and C4 as the soft.

Of particular concern to the teams and drivers this weekend will be keeping the front left alive for the full lap, and avoiding excessive graining or degradation on it over the Sprint or Grand Prix. It’s a stress dynamic that arises from the ‘front limited’ nature of the circuit, and also the slow-medium speed, ever-tightening opening sequence of corners as the drivers turn over 270 degrees.

Also to consider here will be the impact of the Sprint on tyre allocation. A Sprint format weekend drops the allocation per driver from the usual 13 sets to 12, of 2 hard, 4 medium and 6 soft.

Strategy Corner

Last year's Chinese Grand Prix was an intriguing one strategically, as the new track surface and its evolution interacted with the teams’ pre-race expectations for tyre behaviour.

The Sprint revealed graining as the main issue, with the drivers finding it harder to look after their tyres in race trim and while running in dirtier air in the pack, which is also usually less spread over the shorter Sprints. That drove degradation but also resulted in Pirelli raising the minimum starting pressures into Saturday to help the tyres cope with the increased load they were under.

It’s why Pirelli’s motorsport director at the time, Mario Isola, predicted the one-stop to be out of the question with the two-stop being “obligatory” instead. But what played out over the grand prix was vastly different.

The medium was the starting compound of choice for 17 drivers on the grid, with the rest opting for the hard. There were a number of unknowns surrounding the behaviour of the hard tyre heading in, given that it hadn’t been run at all over the first two days of running and was the compound that had undergone the most changes over the winter, but as the race went on it proved to be a stable, consistent, and longer lasting option.

The evidence from Ollie Bearman’s opening stint on the C2 indicated to the rest of the field who’d begun on the medium that switching to a one-stop with a final, longer hard stint was not only feasible, but perhaps optimal. That worked out well for most, with the top five finishers all coming in to switch from the C3 to C2 between laps 13 and 15.

For Ferrari however, it gave rise to a nightmare situation as both of their cars were disqualified for different reasons. Leclerc’s was more directly related to strategy - he had been one of the drivers to run the one-stop and his car was 1kg under the minimum weight limit, which Ferrari explicitly stated was due to “very high” tyre wear.

Hamilton was found to have rearward skid wear 0.5mm under the limit, as Ferrari said they “misjudged the consumption by a small margin”, which was presumed to be a result of the more compressed Sprint format and its impact on finding the optimal setup.

This year though, armed with the evidence of last year’s race, the teams are heading in potentially expecting either the unusual track surface to give rise to a similar strategy this year, or for its aging process to mean we revert back to the two-stop that had been seen here in previous years.

Fast Facts

Pole position has historically played a large role in predicting the winner, with 61% (or 11) of the 18 grands prix held in Shanghai being won by the pole sitter. That includes Oscar Piastri who converted pole to the win here last year.

To win the Chinese Grand Prix from P6 on the grid in 2018, Daniel Ricciardo completed more overtakes than the entire field had at the season-opening Australian race in the same year.

Lewis Hamilton’s Sprint win here last season was the only win of any format he had claimed, and still has claimed, since the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.

The Chinese Grand Prix kicks off with free practice one at 11:30am track time on Friday March 13th. Here’s how the rest of the weekend shapes up, with all times in local:

• Practice 1 - March 13th - 11:30-12:30

• Sprint Qualifying - March 13th - 15:30-16:14

• Sprint - March 14th - 11:00-12:00

• Qualifying - March 14th - 15:00-16:00

• Chinese Grand Prix - March 15th - 15:00

Race Pace

Can Ferrari challenge Mercedes?

Mercedes clearly had the strongest package in Melbourne, as evidenced by the 0.492s gap from Russell and Antonelli to Hadjar in qualifying, but also the 0.785s margin Russell had over his own teammate.

That advantage carried over to Sunday’s Grand Prix, with the Mercedes pair’s combined average pace leaving them 0.113s clear of the field. But, comfortingly to our chances of a intra-team battle this year, that was a considerably smaller advantage than they’d had over a single lap.

After having suffered deployment issues over Q2 and then been unable to refine setup over Q3 given the red flag, Ferrari regained the stronger pace they’d shown on Friday and over testing. While it, alongside their perhaps questionable strategy decision to not box under either VSC, wasn’t enough to put them in contention for the win, it was a much more encouraging show by the Scuderia.

That was something that Charles Leclerc commented on, saying, “we were quite strong in the race, which was a positive given that our expectations yesterday were not that high.” Still, he was aware that “we didn’t have the pace to hold onto first place later on”.

As the quicker driver of the two, as Antonelli also was at Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton was more positive about his and the team’s performance, but also their hope of being in the title fight - saying, “it’s clear we’re in [it]'“. What’s most critical to that hope now and closing that tenth margin to Mercedes’ benchmark is the development pathway they follow, which Vasseur has consistently said will be “aggressive”.

The top four remain the top four

Beyond the fight out front, what became clear from the Australian Grand Prix was that the top four teams are still the top four teams. Both McLaren and Red Bull had just one car for the majority, if not all, of the race in Melbourne, after Oscar Piastri crashed on the reconnaissance laps and Isack Hadjar retired on lap 11.

In many ways, Norris and Verstappen’s races echoed each other’s. They both suffered higher than anticipated levels of graining, followed the two-stop strategy with Norris boxing to cover off Verstappen at his later stop after the four-time champion had progressed back up through the field, and they battled for position over those late stages too.

Just 0.032s split their pace, with Verstappen marginally quicker than Norris but Hadjar’s few laps pulling Red Bull’s team average behind Norris as the McLaren representative. Norris commented on that post-race: “the fact that we could defend against Max and keep him behind, even though he had a lot more pace, was positive.”

What’s maybe most striking though is the gap from Red Bull as fourth quickest to the top team in the midfield, which is almost as large as the gap covering the top four themselves from Mercedes back to Red Bull - 0.734s.

A new team at the front of the midfield?

Leading the midfield, impressively so in their first race under the new marque, were Audi. Only Bortoleto contested the race as Hulkenberg DNS’ed as a result of a telemetry issue with his car, but his pace alone was strong enough to put him 0.387s clear of their closest rivals in Haas.

Bortoleto ran the two-stop strategy, which is likely influencing his pace advantage over those behind who ran the one-stop including a long stint on the hard tyre from boxing under the VSC - a group that includes Bearman, Lindblad, Gasly, and Ocon.

The teams who were coordinated for strategy are generally not split by much for pace, even with the obvious inter-car differences, which is notable. Haas lead that group behind Audi after having shown pace strong enough to enable a P7 finish for Bearman, Racing Bulls are just under a tenth back from them, and Alpine are around another 3 tenths back again.

It leaves Alpine in a rear of the midfield group with Williams, with whom they were more closely matched for pace; split by 0.26s. But Alpine got more out of that pace in terms of the race result given that Gasly claimed P10 and a point to open their campaign, while both Williams cars finished out of the points.

They are clearly ”lacking performance” at this stage, as James Vowles noted post-race, which ultimately comes down to the FW48 being overweight, and the impact of that compounded with the “small issues” that they encountered across the weekend.

Back-markers for different reasons…

Cadillac’s debut race was a success when measured against the goals they set themselves coming in. One car in Perez’s hands saw the chequered flag, albeit 3 laps back from the leader and over 4.5s off Russell’s pace, but the other with Bottas DNF’ed after running just 11 green flag laps.

What’s also notable is that his pace over the laps he did complete was variable - it ran from anywhere as quick as the low 1:27s to as slow as the 1:31s - and we could assume that that is down to a lack of energy management consistency lap to lap. Perez suffered a comparable level of inconsistency in pace, with big swings in his lap times too which persisted all race long.

Even with these clear limitations, their team principal Graeme Lowdon praised the performance, calling it “a really good start to our journey.”

Aston Martin, on the other hand, ran limited laps for a different reason. They entered the weekend with Newey tempering expectations, saying that neither driver was happy to do more than 25 laps in the car for fear of getting “nerve damage” in their fingers from the excessive vibrations from the Honda power unit. As a result, the race was simply going to act as an additional test session for them and be used to evaluate the fixes they’d brought to Melbourne, as they were not prepared to risk needing additional spares, which they don’t have, or for the drivers to be put at risk either.

With that in mind, you could argue that their race performance exceeded expectations, even if it did result in neither driver finishing with both also coming in and out of the pit lane multiple times to “check the car over”. But before the ultimate retirements, Stroll completed 29 timed laps, while Alonso managed 16.

Their pace over these shorter stints leaves them as the tenth quickest team, with Cadillac’s inconsistency being their undoing in comparison, but they are still faced with a 3.8s margin to find to the leaders.

Stroll summarised that in saying “there's still quite a bit missing in terms of performance and reliability”, but he also noted the value of the lap count they achieved in giving them “a bit more direction going into China.”

Tyre Performance

The field largely followed the one-stop strategy Pirelli had predicted as optimal heading into the race - starting on the medium but switching to the hard earlier than had been anticipated to capitalise on the opportunity of boxing under the two VSCs - for Hadjar, then Bottas.

More on the table?

Ferrari were the only team to not take advantage of those opportunities with either driver, leaving them with more evenly split stints over the medium and hard compounds as they chose to box close to the window Pirelli had recommended - lap 26 for Leclerc and 28 for Hamilton.

Ultimately though, the data suggests that their tyre wear over their hard stint was comparable to that of the Mercedes, despite a tyre life delta of around 13 laps between them.

That came down to, as Pirelli’s motorsport director stated post-race, “limited degradation”. But that factor also meant, alongside the VSC oportunities, that a two- (or more) stop race incorporating the soft tyre was not off the table and was run by five drivers.

Degradation estimates, calculated using fuel corrected lap time averages over the field per compound, indicate that there was very little difference between the hard, medium and soft in how much drop off they each showed per lap due to wear or deg. That’s indicated by the gradient of the trendlines here, and supported by the values each being between -0.066 and 0.049, even if the medium tyre was generally the quickest of the three.

Verstappen was one driver who noted a difference versus this lower level wear, saying that graining had “compromised our stints and meant that we couldn’t really fight for more”.

Mercedes

Mercedes have had their dream start to the 2026 season with a 1-2 finish in Melbourne. There’s no doubt among the paddock that they currently have the fastest car and engine, and they executed the weekend perfectly to extract maximum points from the grand prix. Although they had far from an ideal start to it -Russell lost the lead to Leclerc and Antonelli dropped from P2 to P7 - indicating that the team have some work to do on their start procedure and formation lap optimisation. But overall the car was clearly very strong throughout the race and was able to hold up in battle, and the team and drivers all seem ecstatic with what they have produced.

“A great result for everyone at Lauda Drive and Morgan Drive to start the new era of F1 with a 1-2… The start was difficult; we didn’t do a good enough job of managing the limited energy around the formation lap and both drivers ended up with low battery on the line… There is still plenty that we need to improve on, but the team and drivers should be pleased with a great start to the season.”

- Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director.

Ferrari

After a fantastic start to the race for Leclerc - jumping all the way up from P4 to the race lead thanks to a strong start procedure and the SF-26’s smaller turbo that’s clearly advantageous to launches. Ferrari’s race starts will be one to watch throughout the season, especially in the earlier races as they seem to have it figured out before the majority of the other teams.

Even so, the team were open about feeling as though there’s a performance gap to the Mercedes ahead of them in qualifying, which this time could have largely resulted from the deployment issues they had over Q2. The red flag in Q3 compounded with those problems to mean they had little time to find their ideal setup over the session.

Despite that blip, the strong pace and reliability they’d shown over pre-season testing but also free practice in Melbourne came back to them in the race, allowing them to bring home as many points as they possibly could with Mercedes having taken the 1-2.

“From our side, third and fourth is a good result. We saw after qualifying that there was a performance gap and so this result was the best we could do today. We have a long season ahead of us and we must improve many aspects over the coming months… We can be positive, because we know where we need to improve, even if we know it will be a challenge.”

- Fred Vasseur, Ferrari Team Principal.

McLaren

A tough weekend for the reigning constructors’ and driver’s champions. Piastri’s race was over before it began as he spun on the formation lap and crashed into the barriers, so we were unable to see how he would have fared in grand prix conditions.

Norris however was open about the fact that McLaren have work to do to catch up to the front of the grid - but that this was where they had expected to be ahead of the weekend. He suffered more exaggerated graining than most of the front runners, with the exception of Verstappen who he battled over the closing stages, but McLaren were also quite open this weekend about them feeling at a disadvantage for power unit understanding as a customer of Mercedes.

The impact of these various issues left Norris to finish P5 finish, which sees the team collect just 10 points from Australia.

“We need to work hard to understand where we’re losing pace to the front runners, as well as understanding how we can approach the weekend better, but I’ve got full confidence in my team to be able to do that. It’s looking like it’s going to be a long, tough season, but we’re in a reasonable place to start from, and we’ll do the best we can.“

- Lando Norris

Red Bull

A tale of two halves at Red Bull - while Hadjar’s impressive qualifying session saw him line up P3 on the grid (the best qualifying result on debut for Red Bull since Verstappen achieved P4 at the 2016 Spanish GP), a reliability issue with his power unit on lap 11 meant he had to retire from the grand prix early. Up until that point though, Hadjar’s pace was strong despite losing a couple of places to the Ferraris at the start of the race.

Verstappen’s “very strange” crash in Q1 of qualifying, which came before he’d been able to set a lap time, meant he started from P20 on the grid. Even so, he was able to carve back through the field by keeping out of trouble in the early phase, doing some “decent overtakes”, as Max put it, before settling into his two stop strategy.

Verstappen was surprised by high degradation and graining on the hard compound which limited his climb up to the top spots, while he also cited battery issues at the race start - both a key issues for the team to understand heading into the next races.

“I had some issues at the start with the battery so as soon as the clutch was dropped, I had no power so that is something we need to understand… We settled into our own race but unfortunately had a little too much degradation; the tyre behaviour was surprising us as we had a lot of graining on the Hard compound, which of course compromised our stints and meant that we couldn’t really fight for more.“

- Max Verstappen

Haas

Haas were pleasantly surprised with how they performed in the grand prix. A reasonable qualifying session for the team meant they started P12 & P13 on the grid, but by running a race “focused on the basics“, as their team principal Ayao Komatsu said, they were able to finish the race in P7 & P11.

Esteban Ocon, who finished in the latter of those positions, had struggled with a lack of pace and rear instability following his positive start but also got caught up in a battle with his former teammate, Gasly, over the closing stages. He believed that without these issues, and that close battle, he could have joined Bearman in the points.

For Bearman, the opposite was almost true - he had a trickier start but showed solid pace, made some strong overtakes and brought home what could be a vital 6 points as the midfield battle no doubt tightens up.

“This journey has been hugely challenging, not just over the last few months, but throughout the development phase as we were working on the VF-25 and VF-26 in parallel, which wasn’t the case for everyone else… Today we focused on the basics, ran our own race, made the right calls at the right time and the pit stop crew delivered. The race was a brand-new challenge in terms of managing energy, which I think we handled as well as we could, learning with every lap. To come away with P7 for the team is unbelievable - only beaten by the top four teams, I’m so proud of everyone.“

- Ayao Komatsu, Haas Team Principal.

Racing Bulls

An impressive qualifying from both Racing Bulls drivers saw them achieve a double Q3 appearance to start the race from P8 & P9 respectively, with rookie Arvid Lindblad just one place behind his more experienced teammate.

But come the start and having “no power” as the lights went out left Lawson stationary on the grid and dropping out of the top ten, Lindblad on the other hand shot up to be battling for third place during the opening lap - getting his elbows out against Lando Norris, Isack Hadjar and Lewis Hamilton.

“The lights went out very quick, I thought I had nailed my reaction and the procedure so we’ll have to review it but the car didn’t move. I lost all power, and I couldn’t get power for another five seconds, I was just sitting there so it is pretty frustrating.“

- Liam Lawson.

Lawson’s start did cause some discussion around the safety of them under these new regulations, as his lack of power saw him sitting almost still on the grid while other drivers, particularly Colapinto, swerved to dodge his VCARB03. Ultimately, the places he dropped were too much to recover from despite very little pace disparity between the teammates, and he ended the day P13.

Lindblad however, continued fighting throughout the grand prix, and eventually finished in P8 - bringing home 4 hard-fought points. A truly impressive performance from the rookie in his first F1 race.

“[I] definitely showed people that if there’s an opportunity I’m going to get stuck in and I’m not going to hang about. I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed this weekend a lot. I think there’s a few things from the race today that I could’ve managed slightly better but in general, it’s been really positive… I think I’ve almost got the maximum out of the car in ever session so I’m looking forward to China now.“

- Arvid Lindblad.

Audi

A technical, telemetry-related issue on the way to the grid prevented Hulkenberg from starting the grand prix, leaving Bortoleto as the only Audi driver contesting the first race of their Formula 1 campaign. But he represented the German manufacturer brilliantly, bringing home P9 and earning the Audi marque their first points in Formula 1.

“Gabi delivered an outstanding drive today. It was a very mature performance from start to finish. The start wasn’t ideal, which we expected might be a challenge here, but he kept his composure, managed the race extremely well and showed great confidence throughout…

On the other side of the garage, it was obviously disappointing not to see Nico take the start. He was incredibly motivated for his first race with Audi Revolut F1 Team, so that was a difficult moment for him and for everyone in the team. Ultimately, leaving our first Grand Prix with P9 and points on the board is a fantastic way to begin our journey. It’s a historic moment for Audi Revolut F1 Team and something the whole team can be very proud of.”

- Jonathan Wheatley, Audi Team Principal.

Alpine

After an adrenaline filled start to his race after dodging the slow-moving VCARB03 of Lawson, Colapinto received a stop-and-go penalty from the FIA after they identified a member of the team was touching his car on the grid after the 15-second signal had been shown. Such a penalty is not easy to come back from, and he ended the day P14.

On the other side of the garage, Gasly fought hard up to and to hold onto P10 after having started P14 - earning the team a “hard earned point” to open their first campaign as Mercedes customers.

“That was a really hard-earned point today, which we can be pleased to achieve. It was certainly a long afternoon at the wheel! I had a good start off the line to gain a few positions and then some quite interesting battles on track. We had a bit of damage from some contact so we probably could not show our full potential as a result of that… Next week we have the Sprint weekend in China where we have to be on it straight away and up to speed quickly. I leave here happy so well done to the entire team.“

- Pierre Gasly.

Williams

Williams leave Melbourne empty handed after a tough weekend for both drivers. Albon was very open about the team’s issues, highlighting an overweight car, a lack of downforce and graining as being key issues behind the lack of pace for the Williams FW48.

Sainz essentially ran the race as a testing session after a front wing issue meant he lost aero balance and began aggressively degrading the tyres. Reliability issues throughout the weekend meant that he missed out on most of FP3 and all of the qualifying session.

“It was a long race for us today. Currently we are in no man’s land and not really fighting against the midfield, however our strategy was good, but it’s clear we are lacking pace. It’s obvious from lap times that we’re overweight and not producing enough downforce, and graining was also a problem for us today especially on the hard tyre. Realistically we know where we can find the lap time and the team are working tirelessly on an aggressive plan to get us closer to where we want to be.”

- Alex Albon.

Cadillac

Cadillac were happy to have successfully made it to the Australian GP just a year after the entry was confirmed, and to see one of their cars finish the race.

A fuel system issue for Bottas saw him retire early, but Perez was able to complete the full race distance, despite finishing three laps down - overall this was seen as a huge achievement for the team, who can now focus on adding performance to begin racing more competitively.

“I’m really happy with the performance of the team. We had some issues with Valtteri’s car, which was a real shame. It was great to see the Cadillac Formula 1 Team bring its first car home. We're up against incredible competition, who we have huge respect for, but I've got enormous belief in the team that we're building here. This is a really good start to our journey.”

- Graeme Lowdon, Cadillac Team Principal.

Aston Martin

In the face of the myriad of issues the team came into the weekend with, Fernando Alonso’s start to the grand prix was impressive as he gained seven places from P17 to P10 by turn 1. But he was then called in and the team ‘retired’ the car before being sent out again, that saw him complete a second, data gathering focused stint.

It was a similar story for Stroll who came in and out of the pit-lane, and did manage to significantly exceed the 25-lap limit Adrian Newey had placed on them prior to the weekend - doing 43 before DNF’ing.

The team used the race as an opportunity to gather data about their power unit issues specifically, and evaluate the solutions they and Honda had arrived in Melbourne with, which will help to inform their development heading into the next races so that they can start to build some reliability.

“Today was primarily an opportunity to learn more about the AMR26. Both cars took the start and, when it became clear we could not compete for points, we chose to pit and check the cars over. The team then asked Fernando to retire the car to preserve components. The data and learnings from this weekend will help us as we go into the next event.”

- Adrian Newey, Aston Martin Team Principal.

So what options do the teams have for the Grand Prix?

Pirelli opted to keep the compound selection consistent with recent years in Melbourne, despite the obvious unknowns as we headed into the first race of the season. The compound names and their general role in the range may be the same, but the constructions and compound make-up are different, and more robust, to work in conjunction with the narrower tyres and different load profiles of the new cars.

Even so, Pirelli have observed quite typical performance levels of the compounds and deltas between them. Based on that, plus the conditions of the sets at the end of the sessions so far and their performance analyses, Pirelli’s motorsport director, Dario Marrafuschi, believes “all three compounds could play a role” over the race.

The more limited degradation, at least through thermal factors as a result of the very smooth Albert Park surface, means a one-stop approach could be feasible. According to Marrafuschi, the medium-hard combination is the “fastest on paper” with a stop in the window of lap 20 to 26.

The soft could also play a role for a starting stint in a one-stop strategy, coupled with the hard, which would see a driver boxing between laps 15 and 21, according to Pirelli. That would not only provide a potential boost of grip off the line, but may also open the opportunity for a team to capitalise on potential early safety cars or red flags.

The chance of neutralisations in Melbourne sits at 67% for a full safety car, and also 67% for a VSC, based on the previous six grands prix held there. Should either of those arise beyond the opening stages, it could push a team into a two-stop, particularly if they have an extra set of new mediums or softs in their allocation.

In that case, Pirelli anticipate that the softer compounds would bookend a middle stint on the hard, with the use of the C5 in that representing a “more aggressive approach.”

What tyres do the drivers have left?

The McLarens and the Mercedes could follow that two-stop route, given that they all have one new set of hard tyres and two new mediums left heading into the grand prix. Both Ferraris also have two sets of mediums - one new and one used - remaining, while Stroll is the only other car with two new medium sets left.

The only cars remaining with multiple new soft tyre sets available are Verstappen, Sainz, Stroll and Alonso and, of those, perhaps Verstappen is the most likely to follow an aggressive strategy to attempt a recovery drive back through the field.

Will the weather play a role?

Unlike last year’s Australian Grand Prix, the weather is unlikely to add to the chaos this year. The weather is set to be dry, warm (around 26°C ambient) with no chance of rain and fairly comparable to the conditions the teams set their long runs in on Friday. As they continue to gather data to inform their understanding of these new cars, that will be welcome news.

Long Run Lap Times

Long Runs with Delta to Quickest

Mercedes lead the way

They may have had a “difficult start” to their weekend in FP1, as Kimi Antonelli said, with them struggling to get to grips with battery deployment - leaving little room for setup work. But come FP2, and Mercedes didn’t forgo their signature long, consistent race runs.

Together, they completed a combined 23 laps on the hard tyre with Russell’s pace just shy of half a second clear of Antonelli’s. Remarkably, they were consistent lap-to-lap over these runs too, with very little variation from their slowest to quickest times which is something they’d struggled with achieving via consistent energy management and deployment over testing.

The team aren’t getting ahead of themselves though with Andrew Shovlin simply saying the long runs were “decent” and Russell maintaining that “the front of the field looks very competitive”.

But getting a true measure of that competition over longer stints at this stage is complicated by the fact that, aside from Mercedes, the runs by the other top four teams were varied in length, compound use and pace.

Lando Norris did complete some back-to-back laps on the soft tyre, only five of which were in the pace margin for a longer run - albeit still relatively inconsistently. It leaves him splitting the Mercedes pair here, but perhaps not with the most representative showing. Piastri had a similar run plan for his longer stint, again doing it on the soft tyre, but with five much more consistent laps. It leaves him 1.135s off Russell’s pace.

Hamilton was the sole Ferrari to log any sort of longer running worth measuring over the second practice session, but even he did just 5 laps on the hard tyre with average pace that leaves him ranking fifth quickest, yet still 0.698s away from the benchmark.

Around three tenths back for average lap time from Hamilton, with a run of 7 laps on the medium C4 tyre, was Isack Hadjar as the only representation of Red Bull’s longer run pace in the absence of one from Verstappen.

Overall, it leaves us with a picture of the top four teams being separated by 1.1s, although we have to consider the individual differences between the runs and their ‘quality’.

Audi lead the midfield?

The Audi marque’s first day of running at a grand prix weekend was “positive” according to Gabriel Bortoleto, with Nico Hulkenberg, the quicker of the two over their long runs, calling it a “decent first Friday of the season”

He logged 8 laps on the medium tyre with an average lap time of 1:25.509s - within 6 tenths of the front runners, and over 3 tenths clear of his closest midfield rival in Lawson.

Making such comparisons over the midfield versus doing the same between the front runners is simplified by the fact that Hulkenberg, Lawson, Colapinto and Bortoleto all completed their runs on the C4 compound and, with the exception of Bortoleto, completed runs of 7-10 laps.

In fact, there was very little separating Lawson and Colapinto for pace - indicating perhaps that Alpine have made the step up they were hoping for by switching to Mercedes power, but also switching their focus to 2026 early last year.

More widely though, they sit nestled in a group split again by very little even when Lindblad’s 10 laps on the soft, C5 are included. He ran to an average pace just 0.139s slower than his teammate on the medium, with little to no lap time drop-off over the stint - a potentially promising sign for the C5’s use in the Grand Prix, even with the increased loads running over the rear axle under these regulations. That is also supported by Pirelli’s chief engineer, Simone Berra’s, comments: “degradation appears limited and perfectly manageable for the drivers”.

Sitting at the back of the midfield at this point, yet likely to get amongst it when the compound use evens out, are the Haas pair of Bearman and Ocon. Their average lap times were between ~0.9 and 1.0 seconds away from Hulkenberg’s midfield benchmark, but we can assume that at least 0.5s of that, based on Pirelli’s estimates, is due to the difference between the medium and hard compounds.

At the very back of the field, and understandably so in their debut weekend in Formula 1, is the Cadillac of Bottas. He ran for 10 laps on the medium tyre, with average pace 5.029s off Russell’s at the front of the field. The lap times were also quite inconsistent within his stint, fluctuating from the 1:27s to the 1:30s.

Their day was called “hectic” by their team principal, Graeme Lowdon, as it was their first fielding two cars at once and he’s maintaining an awareness of the fact that this first race is not the end point, but “the first step in a long way”.

What we don’t know after a first day of running is where Williams or Aston Martin sit comparatively for long run pace, as neither driver from neither team did a stint in FP2. Aston Martin’s day on the whole was limited by the vibration issue they’ve suffered, while Williams “have some work to do” according to Albon.

Over the 28 grands prix it’s hosted, Michael Schumacher remains the winningest driver after having stood on the top step four times. Of the drivers on the grid this year, seven are race winners in Melbourne with Lewis Hamilton having had the most success at this circuit with two wins, a huge eight pole positions, and ten podiums.

It bodes well for him this year that Ferrari are also the most successful team in Melbourne, having earned ten victories here, the most recent of which came in 2024 with Carlos Sainz. But that race, and in fact most of them held at Albert Park since its return to the calendar in 2022, have been full of chaos…

Characteristic Considerations

Its nature as not only one of the fastest circuits on the calendar, but also a temporary, street track gives rise to that chaos. With the exception of the two to three months before the grand prix and around six weeks after it, Albert Park is just that - a park - that is open to and used by the public.

When the organisers begin its annual transformation into an F1-ready circuit, the catch fencing, barriers and gravel traps simply slot in around the roads that already outline the lake which results in a flowing, sweeping lap with not a lot of room for error. There’s very little differentiation in characteristics over the three sectors with them each featuring longer, faster straights and changes of direction with more medium speed technical corners such as turns 3, 6, or 13.

As a temporary setup, the asphalt, while very smooth, can also be lower grip and ‘green’ at the start of the weekend with track evolution ramping up, and therefore lap times coming down, as the sessions tick down. That can give rise to graining, even if at very low levels.

Straight mode zones & Overtake mode activation

Although no major physical changes have been made to the circuit in line with the new 2026 regulations, the drivers will now contend with ‘straight mode’ zones rather than DRS zones.

Since its return to the calendar in 2022 with a number of alterations to bring the speed up but also increase the overtaking chances, Albert Park featured four DRS zones. This year, those have been replaced by five straight mode zones - with four replacing the DRS zones almost directly, and the additional one coming on the run from turn 5 to turn 6.

With the addition of overtake mode comes its detection and activation points, which in Melbourne will come between turns 13 and 14.

‘Harvest poor’ expectations

As a higher speed circuit with fewer lower speed corners than Bahrain where the teams have just spent six days testing, Melbourne will present them with a different challenge when it comes to the energy management required under this new regulation set.

In Bahrain, Oscar Piastri commented that “depending on where you set your optimality, you don’t have to do much lift and coast”, whereas taking that same approach in Melbourne will likely leave a driver with a flat battery, and down on lap time, very quickly.

While lift and coast will likely be a pervasive technique over the field, the buzzword of the pre-season, ‘super clipping’, will perhaps come into play more in Melbourne. It’s a technique that allows a driver to recover 250kW of electrical energy while they’re still flat on the throttle, for instance through higher speed corners or at the end of straights.

That’s a reduction versus the 350kW that can be recouped under braking or via a technique like lift and coast, but super clipping is often done where straight mode is available which can mean the speed deficit is less significant.

Effectively, the lower drag straight mode helps to balance out the speed deficit that comes from the reduction in horsepower to the rear wheels as the ICE is used for regeneration, to leave a driver perhaps better off for speed than they are when lifting off the throttle or braking, and thus triggering corner mode.

Given the five straight mode zones around Albert Park, including now the run from turns 5-6 which last year was taken from ~250-290km/h, and that over 70% of the lap was taken at full throttle, we can perhaps expect superclipping to come into play over most of them.

That will likely mean, as has been anticipated, a slower lap time but also lower top speeds at the ends of straights - a phenomenon also observed over testing in Bahrain.

The Compounds

This weekend will mark the first competitive outing for the 2026 tyre range with its new narrower width, and therefore reduced contact patch. What’s not changed however compared to last year is the selection of compounds Pirelli are bringing to Melbourne, which this year are the softest in the range given the removal of the C6. The C3 will be the hard, the C4 the medium, and the C5 the soft.

The layout of Albert Park doesn’t place the tyres under particularly high levels of stress typically and degradation, in the past at least, has been driven more by wear than thermal factors.

But this year, the characteristics of the cars themselves mean there are a number of unknowns over the behaviour of the tyres and how the teams will opt to use their allocations over the weekend, and Pirelli believe that the early indications of that will come from the number of performance and long runs done on Friday.

Those runs will also help the teams, and Pirelli themselves, understand the new, potentially more heavily asymmetrical, demands placed on the tyres by the increased torque delivered to the rear axle. That may need correcting, which Pirelli say could be done either by altering the tyre blanket temperatures prior to leaving the garage or through an additional preparation lap before a flying lap in qualifying.

Strategy Corner

It’s these factors and unknowns surrounding tyre behaviour, but also the level of overtaking that will be possible through the interaction of the Melbourne circuit layout and new measures such as overtake mode, that mean predicting strategy for Sunday’s grand prix is incredibly tough.

Typically, over a dry race here held under the last regulation set (the last of which came in 2024), the medium and hard have been the most used under a two-stop strategy, but the soft has had a role to play, particularly for a starting stint. This year, how prepared a team is to make use of the soft tyre will come down to the load generated by their individual car.

The weather will also of course play a role and the early autumn timing of this race in Melbourne has created mixed conditions in the past - with last year’s Grand Prix standing out as an example of the chaos that can cause. The teams might be relieved therefore that the weather this weekend is predicted to be warm and dry.

Fast Facts

In Her Corner

To celebrate International Women’s Day that coincides on race day in Melbourne, March 8th, Engineers Australia and the promoter have teamed up to highlight women in STEM roles under the ‘In Her Corner’ initiative. Turn 6 will be renamed ‘Mueller Schmitz’ to honour Laura Mueller, Esteban Ocon’s race engineer at Haas, and Hannah Schmitz, principal strategy engineer at Red Bull Racing.

A unique trophy

The Australian Grand Prix trophy design has remained almost untouched since the race was first hosted in Melbourne in 1996. It’s inspired by the steering wheel of Australian motorsport legend, and world champion, Jack Brabham’s 1959 Cooper-Climax T51.

No home podiums

To this day, an Australian has never officially taken a podium in Melbourne, despite two having stood on it. Daniel Ricciardo crossed the line P2 on debut for Red Bull Racing in 2014 and took to the podium to claim his trophy, but was later disqualified as his car had exceeded the maximum allowed fuel flow limit.

Mark Webber finished P5 on debut for Minardi in 2002, a result that was so unexpected for the Australian driver who’d started from P18 that the organisers invited him and the team’s owner, Australian Paul Stoddart, onto the podium after the official ceremony to celebrate.

500 Grands Prix for one driver

This weekend’s race will mark the 500th where Bernd Maylander has been the safety car driver. His first race weekend in the role was in Melbourne in 2000 and 26 years later, he’s still in the paddock!

The Australian Grand Prix, and the 2026 season, kicks off with free practice one at 12:30pm track time on Friday March 6th. Here’s how the rest of the weekend shapes up, with all times in local:

• Practice 1 - March 6th - 12:30-13:30

• Practice 2 - March 6th - 16:00-17:00

• Practice 3 - March 7th - 12:30-13:30

• Qualifying - March 7th - 16:00-17:00

• Australian Grand Prix - March 8th - 15:00

Following a pre-season full of conversation and controversy around engine compression ratios, specifically focused on the Mercedes power unit, F1’s manufacturers have agreed to revisions to the regulations.

The claims centre around article C5.4.3 of the F1 technical regulations, which states that no cylinder of the engine may have a compression ratio higher than 16.0 - down from 18.0 last season - and currently it is only checked with a static test at ambient temperature.

But paddock rumours suggested that Mercedes had found a way of meeting that 16:1 limit during ambient tests, but then increasing it up to the previous limit of 18:1 while the engine is hot and running. That could bring increased thermal efficiency, but also more power. Mercedes however have firmly denied the significance of any potential advantage, with Toto Wolff calling the saga a “storm in a teacup” that’s “not worth the fight” during a press conference over testing.

That hasn’t prevented rival manufacturers advocating for “absolute clarity” over the regulations though, as Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies said. But the FIA also appear to hold the stance of the season being fought “on track, not in the courtroom or stewards room”, according to comments from their head of single seaters, Nikolas Tombazis.

In an effort to squash the issue, changes to the testing methodology were discussed and went to e-vote ten days ago. The proposal stated that compliance with the compression ratio limit would have to be demonstrated not only at ambient conditions, but also at a “representative operating temperature” of 130°C from August 1st.

Now, the introduction of that new ‘hot test’, as a result of a vote by the Power Unit Advisory Committee that reportedly received unanimous support, will come sooner - June 1st this year, between the Canadian and Monaco Grands Prix.

The FIA statement outlined that the compression ratio parameter had been “one of the key fundamental targets of these regulations in order to attract newcomers to the sport”, and given that, it had “worked to find a compromise solution” among all manufacturers.

“A significant effort has been invested in finding a solution to the topic of the compression ratio. This parameter, which was one of the key fundamental targets of these regulations in order to attract newcomers to the sport, is limited in the regulations to 16:1, measured in cold conditions.

The FIA has worked to find a compromise solution which determines that the compression ratio will be controlled in both hot and cold conditions from 1 June 2026, and subsequently only in the operating conditions (130deg C) from 2027 onwards.

The regulations introduced for 2026 represent one of the biggest changes in recent memory. All parties acknowledge that with the introduction of such significant regulatory changes, there are collective learnings to be taken from pre-season testing and the initial rounds of the 2026 championship.”

Importantly, the 2027 season, as the statement says, will see the compression ratio assessed only in the operating conditions, i.e., only with the ‘hot test’ rather than a combination of ambient and operating temperatures. That may mean that from next year, the manufacturers will be able to target an overall higher compression ratio given the removal of the need to comply with 16:1 at ambient conditions.

No more mandatory stops in Monaco

Alongside this more attention-grabbing amendment, the FIA also made a change to the sporting regulations to remove the mandatory use of at least three sets of tyres in Monaco that was previously specified in article B6.3.6. In other words, the mandatory two-stop race there was a one-off for last season.

The introduction of that measure had been intended to ‘spice up’ the race that is usually more of a procession than one full of on track battles, as the overtake data year-by-year suggests. But that data also suggests that the change made no difference to on track overtakes, even if there were move overall position changes from the starting to finishing orders.

Beyond the overtaking metric, the regulation change did give rise to a higher level of gamesmanship through the field, as had been expected. Teams like Racing Bulls or Williams who had one driver qualify further up the field and another lower down used the lower driver to back the pack up, creating an opportunity for the higher up driver to pit.

While that tactic benefitted Racing Bulls particularly, other teams fell victim to it and suffered generally more messy races - Mercedes being a key example of that.

No reason for the reversion to a ‘typical’ Monaco Grand Prix has been given by the FIA, but we could assume it’s to establish a baseline of the effect of 2026 regulation features like overtake mode and energy management on racing there.

For more on the impacts the regulation change had, or did not have, check out our data deep dive.

A small qualifying adjustment

Over the winter, to account for the addition of Cadillac to the grid as an 11the team, the FIA altered the qualifying session structure under article B2.4.2 of the sporting regulations.

It means this year we’ll see six cars, instead of five, exit after Q1 and a further six, instead of five, exit after Q2 - preserving the top ten battle for pole in Q3 even with two additional cars taking part.

Alongside those previous amendments, the FIA have now chosen to cut the gap between Q2 ending and Q3 beginning down from eight minutes to seven, and increase the length of Q3 by that extra minute, bringing it to thirteen instead of twelve. The overall length of the session - 60 minutes when uninterrupted - remains unchanged.