F1 2026 - Watchalong Thread

[Brazilianadventure]

Happy New Year.

This is going to be an interesting year with the regulation change.

Rumours are Mercedes and RB engines are exploiting a loophole and so may have the most powerful engines.

AM will have a car with significant input from Adrian Newey.

Sauber becomes Audi and we have an 11th team, Cadillac.

Christian Horner seems very keen to get back into F1, preferably Alpine with Flávio - they deserve each other.

There is closed door testing in Barcelona then open testing from 11 February at Sakhir.

Edited for typo and thread title.

It seems a little unfair to put Lewis on the podium knowing he might lose it.
@Fizbosshoes piastri tangled with lawson.
Pleased for Charles though.

It happens - I imaging they want to review all the evidence and hear from Lewis.

Edited for spelling

I thought Martin’s grid walk was lovely when Chris Hoy said Carlos had seen his documentary and invited him as his guest. What a nice thing for Carlos to do.

Lewis says he missed the yellow flag, so he knows he is likely to get a penalty.

No yellow flag for Lewis so he keeps 3rd

Exactly! I said this to my son wbo made fun of fhe fact I am still not over it!

Lewis made a couple of erros with the start and yellow flag infringement…… must have felt the pressure

I will never forget - it wasn’t Max’s fault but it wasn’t according to the rules. I’ve always said they should have made them joint world champions as that was the only fair way to resolve it.

He is human but accepts his errors which I respect.

@Brazilianadventure to be fair only reason Lewis is not 8 times world champion after the FIA investigation is because Mercedes did noy appeal as they found Masi decision to be wrong but there was no mechanism to overturn the outcome. Or something like that

Do we know yet why the safety car was redeployed?

It’s because the rules say that the safety car must complete a lap after all the lapped cars have unlapped themselves.

They didn’t give the instruction to unlap until lap 51, and so lap 52, which was the last lap, also had to be a safety car lap.

So has Hamilton been given penalty. We should know by now

No penalty. Not sure why.

So, on the track, there was a green flag light at turn 10 (the end of the yellow flag zone), and no yellow flag on track visible to Lewis when he entered the yellow zone.

A yellow flag showed only briefly on his steering wheel, and only when he got towards the end of the yellow flag sector. So the stewards said they accepted that he didn’t have much time to react to the yellow light on his steering wheel, and have let him off with a reprimand.

I hate that I get over involved and over emotional about sport. I’m still upset about Kimi today. He was so fast and probably would have won. The fact it’s the second no point finish in three races doesn’t help either.

Just have to tell myself that even if he doesn’t win the WDC he’s still been brilliant this year.

If George wins the WDC I’ll be furious.

Why would you be furious if George wins, he has had mechanical failures too?

Exactly, George has had several races where he was either on course to win or get a podium and a mechanical failure not of his own fault lost him the win.

Kimi would not have won. His shuddery start means that Charles was well ahead. I wasn't able to see all the race but I gather the only time he was in pole was when others had pitted but he hadn't yet. He might have won out on faster tyres, maybe. But as Max says, if my mother had balls she'd be my father.

George had a puncture, and has also had mechanical issues and bad luck in some races.

Kimi has also had things go in his favour eg the safety car in Japan.Hes an amazing talent in arguably the fastest car, and there are lots more races to go. I think he can do it.....but hes so young he'll have a chance for plenty more years if he doesnt this year.

I can sympathise though, as me and DS support OP and I felt really aggrieved after Qatar last year where McLaren blundered the pitstop strategy that potentially cost him the win ...especially the week after they were DSQ in vegas (although he was not on course for WDC by then)

Of course my daughter would also argue that Mclaren also massivly disadvantaged Lando with his slow pit stops.

I do hope that Oscar's time will come.

Will Buxton and a few other journalists are reporting big f1 news coming by end of today. Apparently big like Hamilton to Ferrari

I've heard it involves Max but who knows!

Yes this is what I heard too. Quite a few people are guessing he is going to McLaren and piastri to Redbull which could be quite interesting

Someone who I was with on Saturday who doesn;t like George was trying to wind me up that he is going to Mercedes & George to Williams but I'm pretty sure he is just trying to wind me up.

Ive seen several reports in the last week that Max has supposedly been in talks with McLaren ....