Three races in, and the 2026 Formula 1 season has already delivered more plot twists than a Netflix drama. A teenage rookie leading the championship. A four-time world champion marooned in ninth place. A team funded by a billionaire’s pocket money sitting behind a squad that reportedly operates on a budget roughly equivalent to one of Lance Stroll’s wristwatches. And we haven’t even got to Miami yet.
If you’ve been sleeping on F1, now is the time to wake up. Here’s everything you need to know – and every reason you need to be watching. Here’s how to watch F1 in 2026 without paying Sky Sports prices →
🥇 Mercedes: please, not again
Every time a major regulation change arrives in Formula 1, the paddock whispers the same hopeful prayer: “maybe this time someone else will dominate.” The 2022 regs handed us Red Bull’s four-year stranglehold. The 2026 regs – new power units, new aerodynamic philosophy, entirely new everything – were supposed to be the great reset.
Mercedes would like to formally apologise for what has happened next.
Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship with 72 points. George Russell sits second with 63. Mercedes have won all three races. Their car is reportedly around a second per lap faster than Red Bull’s. It’s as if the Silver Arrows sat down, watched four years of being beaten, and decided the most appropriate response was to come back and do it to everyone else immediately.
The question now isn’t whether Mercedes are fast. They are. The question is whether they can stay that way – and whether the Ferrari and McLaren upgrade cycles, fuelled by two of the most frantic development programmes in the paddock, will eventually close the gap. The teams have five weeks to figure it out during the April break. No pressure.
🤺 Russell vs Antonelli: the next great team-mate war?
George Russell has spent years being the sensible one – the composed, methodical, politically savvy half of whatever Mercedes line-up he found himself in. Now he’s being out-pointed by a 19-year-old who, two years ago, was still racing in Formula 2.
Kimi Antonelli – reportedly not named after Kimi Räikkönen, though try telling that to the algorithm – has taken to Formula 1 like he’s been doing it his whole life, which, technically, he kind of has. Wins, poles, championship points. The rookie is serene. Russell, meanwhile, is the picture of a man trying very hard to look serene.
We’ve been here before. Two Mercedes drivers, fast car, closely matched on pace, increasingly competitive atmosphere in the garage. You may remember how the last one ended: a helmets-off argument in Baku, a number of pointed press conference answers, and an eventual parting of ways that sent one of them to Ferrari. The internet has not forgotten. The Russell vs Antonelli is just Hamilton vs Rosberg in a different font takes have already started appearing.
They haven’t reached the “deliberately crashing into each other” phase yet. Give it time. Watch this space. This is the subplot of the season.
🔴 Ferrari and McLaren: so close, yet so many opportunities to fumble
Lewis Hamilton is at Ferrari. He actually joined them back in 2025, but he and his fans have collectively decided that year never happened and this is officially Year One of the Ferrari era. Fresh start. Clean slate. We do not speak of 2025. Ferrari’s strategists have already responded to this renewed optimism by giving him third place in China instead of second, which is the Ferrari way of saying “welcome back to the family.”
To be fair, Ferrari are genuinely competitive in 2026. Charles Leclerc is third in the championship with 49 points. Hamilton is on the podium. The car is quick. The only enemy, as ever, is Ferrari’s own pitwall – a group of individuals who have, over the years, demonstrated a unique ability to turn certain victory into a confused shrug. It’s a talent, genuinely. We salute it.
McLaren, meanwhile, are third in the constructors’ standings but have been wrestling with reliability issues that have cost Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri meaningful points. This is the curse of being genuinely fast: every DNF hurts. The MCL39 has pace. Whether it has durability is the question the April break will answer. Zak Brown has publicly agreed with Norris’s claim that McLaren have the best car. The scoreboard does not currently agree with Zak Brown.
😬 Max Verstappen: this is fine
Max Verstappen is ninth in the drivers’ championship. Ninth.
The four-time world champion – the man who was so dominant in 2023 that we ran out of superlatives – is currently being beaten by Haas. Red Bull’s RB22 is reportedly around a second per lap slower than the Mercedes, which in Formula 1 terms is roughly equivalent to showing up to a knife fight with a particularly stern expression. The chassis, by multiple accounts, is “terrible.” The team is apparently discussing whether to simply abandon the 2026 car entirely and start again.
To put the cherry on top: Alpine – yes, that Alpine, the one that has spent the last three seasons in a state of permanent internal reorganisation – are currently ahead of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship.
Verstappen has been vocal about hating the new energy management rules. He has, in various interviews, made it clear he is not having fun. The murmurs about his future in F1 grow louder with each race weekend. In the meantime, he continues to extract the maximum from a car that the maximum from isn’t very much.
Watch Verstappen in 2026 not because he’s winning – he isn’t – but because watching the greatest driver of his generation try to drag an uncooperative car into the points is genuinely fascinating. It’s like watching Messi play in League Two. You can’t look away.
🏆 The best of the rest: an unexpected leaderboard
Here is the 2026 constructors’ championship order, which we present without comment because it speaks for itself:
- Mercedes
- Ferrari
- McLaren
- Haas
- Alpine
- Red Bull
Haas. Fourth. With a budget that, relative to the rest of the field, is basically a GoFundMe.
The American team – long the punchline of grid-position jokes, perennial holders of the “at least they’re trying” award – have found something in the 2026 regulations that suits their car philosophy. Their drivers, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman, have been quietly raking in points while the big teams sort themselves out.
Meanwhile, Aston Martin – backed by Lawrence Stroll’s formidable resources and housed in what is genuinely one of the most impressive facilities in Formula 1 – are, by multiple accounts, writing the 2026 season off entirely. There is a particular comedy to this. Lance Stroll has access to a custom-built factory, Honda’s works engine, and the kind of development budget that makes other team principals quietly weep, and is somehow behind Haas. The internet, predictably, has thoughts.
Racing Bulls, for their part, have been the quiet achievers – consistently in the points, the RB junior car proving better-rounded than its bigger sister team’s entry. Keep an eye on them as the season develops.
📅 The unexpected April break: what happens now?
Formula 1 was supposed to race in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in April. Both events were cancelled due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, leaving a five-week gap between the Japanese Grand Prix and the Miami opener on May 1–3. This is the longest unplanned break the sport has had in years.
For the top teams, five extra weeks of development time is significant. Mercedes will be trying to extend their advantage. Ferrari and McLaren will be trying to find another tenth or two. Red Bull will be trying to figure out whether the car they’ve built is actually fixable or whether they should do something drastic.
For the fans, it means the championship picture that looked settled – Antonelli cruising, Verstappen in crisis – might look very different by the time we reach Miami. Half the grid will emerge from this break with meaningfully upgraded cars. The other half will emerge with slightly better coffee machine settings in the motorhome.
Miami on May 1 is, effectively, the start of a second season. Everything resets. It should be unmissable.
📺 How to watch – don’t miss Miami
The next race is the Miami Grand Prix, May 1–3. If you’re not already set up to watch F1 live, now is the perfect moment – the break gives you time to sort your streaming setup before the season kicks back into gear.
We’ve put together a full guide to every way to watch F1 in 2026 without a Sky Sports subscription – including the F1 TV Pro + VPN method that costs a fraction of a standard sports bundle.
How to watch F1 live in 2026 – full guide →
All championship standings correct as of the Japanese Grand Prix (April 2026). Next race: Miami Grand Prix, May 1–3 2026.