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2026 Formula One Season Thread

McLaren has the money to “buy out” the remainder of his contract to get him there quicker, but LawVS’ latest video on the matter implies it may not happen before the end of the 2027 season to minimize said “gardening leave” and provide for a smoother transition within Red Bull.
 
Word on the street is that as part of the ADUO discussions happening this month, Honda are eligible for the full two update opportunities because their PU is down almost 100 bhp to Mercedes’. This is more than double the 4% deficit that triggers the two updates.

Alonso must be nostalgic for the “GP2” engine he had at McClaren.
 
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Lance Stroll decided to try his hand at GT racing during this unscheduled break in the F1 calendar, co-driving the #18 Aston Martin X in the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe opening round at Circuit Paul Ricard. Over the course of the event, Lance, Roberto Mehri and Mari Boya proceeded to collect 465 seconds worth of penalties due to track limits excursions, ignoring blue flags and causing a collision.

As for the sister 007 car, it won the race. 😛

www.dive-bomb.com

Lance Stroll racks up penalties in disastrous GT racing debut

Lance Stroll picked up multiple penalties in a disastrous GT racing debut at the opening round of the GT World Challenge Europe 2026.
www.dive-bomb.com www.dive-bomb.com
 
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CWallace said:
Lance Stroll decided to try his hand at GT racing during this unscheduled break in the F1 calendar, co-driving the #18 Aston Martin X in the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe opening round at Circuit Paul Ricard. Over the course of the event, Lance, Roberto Mehri and Mari Boya proceeded to collect 465 seconds worth of penalties due to track limits excursions, ignoring blue flags and causing a collision.

As for the sister 007 car, it won the race. 😛

www.dive-bomb.com

Lance Stroll racks up penalties in disastrous GT racing debut

Lance Stroll picked up multiple penalties in a disastrous GT racing debut at the opening round of the GT World Challenge Europe 2026.
www.dive-bomb.com www.dive-bomb.com
Click to expand...
Brilliant
 
CWallace said:
Lance Stroll decided to try his hand at GT racing during this unscheduled break in the F1 calendar, co-driving the #18 Aston Martin X in the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe opening round at Circuit Paul Ricard. Over the course of the event, Lance, Roberto Mehri and Mari Boya proceeded to collect 465 seconds worth of penalties due to track limits excursions, ignoring blue flags and causing a collision.

As for the sister 007 car, it won the race. 😛

www.dive-bomb.com

Lance Stroll racks up penalties in disastrous GT racing debut

Lance Stroll picked up multiple penalties in a disastrous GT racing debut at the opening round of the GT World Challenge Europe 2026.
www.dive-bomb.com www.dive-bomb.com
Click to expand...
Most of the grid was hit with blue flag time penalties due to the implementation of new rules for the season that many drivers weren't used to. Stroll himself did pretty well during the race and was the fastest car on the track at times during his night shift behind the wheel, despite having never driven the car in the dark before.
 
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headlessmike said:
Most of the grid was hit with blue flag time penalties due to the implementation of new rules for the season that many drivers weren't used to. Stroll himself did pretty well during the race and was the fastest car on the track at times during his night shift behind the wheel, despite having never driven the car in the dark before.
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I was impressed with his night times as well given his lack of experience. Was nice to see Lance have some success away from AMR.

The Blue Flag penalties were as expected. Allot more complicated than Blue Flags in F1.
24hrs should be fun with 150 entries. 😉
 
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CWallace said:
Word on the street is that as part of the ADUO discussions happening this month, Honda are eligible for the full two update opportunities because their PU is down almost 100 bhp to Mercedes’. This is more than double the 4% deficit that triggers the two updates.

Alonso must be nostalgic for the “GP2” engine he had at McClaren.
Click to expand...

Honda will have some extra income to work with as well with the new agreement to supply Red Bull older spec PU’s for testing the next 2yrs in old chassis. I hope it works out for them.
 
Glideslope said:
I was impressed with his night times as well given his lack of experience. Was nice to see Lance have some success away from AMR.

The Blue Flag penalties were as expected. Allot more complicated than Blue Flags in F1.
24hrs should be fun with 150 entries. 😉
Click to expand...
Yeah, he did well. His teammates accrued all but 10 seconds of track limits violations. The 6h race was split into stints of two hours per driver. Stroll drove the last stint and was fastest of all cars remaining in the race during those two hours. Comparing all stints together, he was still the 8th fastest driver in a car that he'd barely driven before and never in the dark.
 
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The FIA has revised the rules around MGU-K shutoff to ban the tactic that Mercedes and Red Bull were employing to extend the maximum deployment time of the battery at the end of a qualifying lap to gain an advantage with the caveat that the MGU-K was then unavailable for the next minute.

The rule was put in place to allow the battery store to be more quickly expended in case of an emergency with the MGU-K.

 
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From F1.com:
www.formula1.com

Sauber’s best moments and most memorable liveries in F1

From a points-scoring debut in 1993 to podiums, victories and iconic liveries, we revisit the defining moments from Sauber’s 30 years in F1.
www.formula1.com www.formula1.com
 
Interesting video by LawVS on a recent interview with Stefano Domenicali.

It appears that while long-time European viewers are revolting, the rest of the world appears to be embracing Formula One's current era with non-European viewing numbers up significantly and at -track attendance also rising. It will be interesting to see how the European rounds do with viewership and attendance within the Continent.



I know many feel Liberty Media's ownership of FOM has been a disaster, but it has turned F1 from a relatively "niche" sport for the top 10% it was under Bernie into a global presence available to anyone who can afford an F1TV or cable TV subscription.
 
CWallace said:
Interesting video by LawVS on a recent interview with Stefano Domenicali.

It appears that while long-time European viewers are revolting, the rest of the world appears to be embracing Formula One's current era with non-European viewing numbers up significantly and at -track attendance also rising. It will be interesting to see how the European rounds do with viewership and attendance within the Continent.



I know many feel Liberty Media's ownership of FOM has been a disaster, but it has turned F1 from a relatively "niche" sport for the top 10% it was under Bernie into a global presence available to anyone who can afford an F1TV or cable TV subscription.
Click to expand...
I hate them so much...
 
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pachyderm said:
Speaking of Robert Kubica ...

www.formula1.com

IN HIS OWN WORDS: Kubica on his '08 Canadian GP win

10 years on, Robert Kubica looks back on the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix - the race where he scored his one and only F1 victory to date. Among the topics covered, his feelings on returning to the scene of his biggest F1 crash, an ominous conversation with one-time Grand Prix winner Jean Alesi, and...
www.formula1.com www.formula1.com
Click to expand...
Thanks. I was a big Kubica fan.
 
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CWallace said:
It appears that while long-time European viewers are revolting, the rest of the world appears to be embracing Formula One's current era with non-European viewing numbers up significantly and at -track attendance also rising. It will be interesting to see how the European rounds do with viewership and attendance within the Continent.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. At least from an American standpoint. We are used to NASCAR and Indycar where drivers are constantly passing. We don't have much appetite for following P1 around single file an entire race.
 
The NLS4 qualifying race Max is participating in at the Nurburgring was Red Flagged and then cancelled 25 minutes into the event after a seven car crash at the Steilstrecke section of the Nordschleife in which driver Juha Miettinen lost his life.

www.the-race.com

Driver dies after crash that stopped Nurburgring race

Nordschleife regular Juha Miettinen has died after a seven-car incident in the Nurburgring race Max Verstappen was contesting
www.the-race.com www.the-race.com
 
CWallace said:
The NLS4 qualifying race Max is participating in at the Nurburgring was Red Flagged and then cancelled 25 minutes into the event after a seven car crash at the Steilstrecke section of the Nordschleife in which driver Juha Miettinen lost his life.

www.the-race.com

Driver dies after crash that stopped Nurburgring race

Nordschleife regular Juha Miettinen has died after a seven-car incident in the Nurburgring race Max Verstappen was contesting
www.the-race.com www.the-race.com
Click to expand...
Sad. It’s rare these days, but no less sad when a brave sportsman or sportswoman loses their life. RIP.
 
CWallace said:
The NLS4 qualifying race Max is participating in at the Nurburgring was Red Flagged and then cancelled 25 minutes into the event after a seven car crash at the Steilstrecke section of the Nordschleife in which driver Juha Miettinen lost his life.

www.the-race.com

Driver dies after crash that stopped Nurburgring race

Nordschleife regular Juha Miettinen has died after a seven-car incident in the Nurburgring race Max Verstappen was contesting
www.the-race.com www.the-race.com
Click to expand...

Godspeed.

It was a nasty pileup. Not sure yet who dropped all the oil. They were all just passengers going into Klostertal. That’s the fasted downhill corner on the circuit. It’s right before Karussell.

Another reminder just how dangerous this profession can be.


CWallace said:
Miami should be very interesting on the upgrade side since the teams have had double the usual time to develop and test.
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The only interesting thing at Miami is guessing what Clown Guest Zack will bring. I can’t stand it. COTA is the only worthy F1 circuit here in the US. Of course this is just an opinion……
 
I agree Miami is a waste of a race slot, but I kind of like Las Vegas. It looks more impressive under the lights than Singapore or Jeddah does.
 
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