From F1 Lead on Facebook:

??F1 Testing in Barcelona, Day 5: Ferrari and McLaren topped the final day of the Barcelona shakedown, with Lewis Hamilton setting the fastest time of the week. Most teams completed heavy mileage, confirming solid reliability. Fernando Alonso finally enjoyed a full day in the Aston Martin 2026 car ahead of the more performance-focused Bahrain tests.

Max doesn't like the new cars but they are the same for everyone.  @Purple88, what are you thinking here?

From F1 Lead and I will update the standings soon.

After a long spring break due to race cancelations here are the F1 standings heading into Miami this weekend.

Kimi Antonelli is on fire and so far Mercedes is bringing the best cars to the grid.  

On 6/9/2026 at 12:12 PM, theguru said:

Kimi Antonelli is on fire and so far Mercedes is bringing the best cars to the grid.  

While this is true G, since your note on June 9th the Silver Arrows have been their worst version of themselves from a reliability standpoint.

In Spain, Antonelli was the best car, but an electrical shutdown forced the youngster to retire.  And then last week in England for the British Grand Prix, a "wheel shield" failure caused him to tumble from a sure victory to generally out of the points.

Then his teammate George Russell, who was the clear championship leader coming out of the offseason and winning convincingly in Australia (the first race) has since dropped like a stone, but found really good luck or good fortune to overcome a slow puncture in Britian and somehow didn't have to defend a final lap as F1 couldn't pull their pants up to have a real end of the British Grand Prix and allowed it to end under caution as Max Verstappen spun off track with a rear wing issue, and end for the first time in 75 years came under caution.  Come on man...

So, who does Mercedes gremlins help?  Everybody else and especially Ferrari.  In that Mercedes downturn, the prancing ponies have become reborn in a lot of ways.  First Lewis Hamilton is on fire and had a rejuvenating win in Spain, so much so he looked to be the lead Ferrari car for the first time as Charles LeClerc just seemed to be lost on track.  But give the Monegasque a new feather in his cap as he found some game changing data on Friday at Silverstone (British GP) and turned that into a front row qualifying run.  And after Kimi Antonelli became too aggressive at the start with an abundance of wheel spin allowed both Red Cars of LeClerc and Hamilton to zoom by.  The Ferrari good day got better when Antonelli had his reliability problems again and allowed LeClerc to hang on and win for the first time in 37 races when he won the 2024 US Grand prix in Austin, TX.  And Hamilton was forced to settle for 3rd as F1 couldn't restart the race at the end and Hamilton would have surely passed older tyre George Russell for 2nd but was not meant to be.

What about other teams:

McLaren - the Papaya cars are just a step behind right now, but word is they will have some upgrades soon which they hope to put them in the fight at the front instead of kinda lonely down in 4th spot.

RedBull - Verstappen alone gives you a chance at the podium every race.  But the car seems more difficult to drive every race.  A good thing is Isaac Hadjar the second-year Frenchman and teammate to Verstappen is MUCH more solid than any of the last attempts at RedBull Teammates since Sergio Perez was around.  A bad thing is the rumors of Verstappen to McLaren have started to build.  Pressurized times at RedBull!

Racing Bulls - the little brother team to RedBull and the leaders of the midfield (the cars not really capable of driving at the front, but still able to get points (1-10 on the grid get points for finishing there in Grand Prixs)).  Lawson and Lindblad seem like a good team.

Audi - a good team and along with Alpine the next up in battling in the midfield.  Bortoleto, the Brazilian, has done really well and scored 6 points this year while surprisingly on top of much more seasoned Nico Hulkenberg.  

Alpine - Piere Gasly is a super driver and likely is too low on the grid from a constructor's standpoint, but it's a tough business F1.  He is a threat for points every week.  His teammate, the Argentinian, Franco Colapinto is young and fast but also more unreliable, so it's a mixed bag.

Haas and Williams - are more about struggling than anything else.  At least Haas brings upgrades most weeks.  I think last season's wreck train is coming to haunt Williams this season as the lack of money from finishing down the grid for prize money affects these guys more than they will say.  Carlos Sainz just looks like a frustration poster boy.  Just can't make headway at the moment.

The Dogs:

Cadillac - Yes, they are down here, but they are supposed to be down here.  You can't expect a team to come into an ultra-competitive sport and compete with teams that have lived for this sport for 75 years.  Just not realistic.  But I have been impressed with Cadillac cutting their competition times down from the beginning of the season to now and Perez and Bottas trying to compete for Q2 in the Qualifying sessions.  You have to start small in F1.  Keep going Cadillac!

Aston Martin - I really don't know what to say here but feel I was fed a bag of information regarding Adrian Newey, the new elevated Principal at Astin and with his acclaim for engine design and car engineering prowess, I expected the green cars to be at least near the front of the midfield.  They are DEAD LAST on the grid.  And sometimes a whole second behind Cadillac.  I'm really shocked.  I don't expect them to compete with the big 4 teams at this stage, but you are getting outworked by a team with a much smaller support group (Cadillac) both on and off the track.  If I'm Laurence Stroll, the owner of the Astin Martin team and I'm spending as much of his own money as he is, I'd be ticked off to be the laughingstock of the whole F1 paddock.  HAVE to do better.  And should be doing better.

There's a week off before one of my very favorite races as the tour goes to one of the most iconic tracks in the world.  The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is hidden in the Ardennes Mountains in Belgium.  It along with Silverstone (British GP) have hosted F1 races from the beginning of F1 in 1950.  The setup going through the Le Raidillon de Eau Rouge in turns 2, 3, and 4 are the most iconic in all of F1 IMO.  Just classic and a piece of what really drew me to F1.  Going to be an interesting race.

I love Spa too!

Great to hear your breakdown of everything @Purple88!

I am going to work in reverse here.  Something has to change with Aston Martin, they are a laughingstock and saying that is not fun.

Cadillac is making some small improvements and this year is totally a developmental year for them.  The fact that they are already ahead of one team is a good sign and hopefully they can jump up into the midfield next year. 

I am going to put Haas, Williams, Audi, and Alpine into the same bucket.  Mostly forgettable... 

On the Racing Bulls I cosign with you, they are at the head of the midfield and it is impressive.

On Red Bull I agree, it is a car issue but with that said both drivers have been pretty solid and yes Max always gives you a chance.  Furthermore, it is excellent to see the second RB driver mostly hang with Max, very refreshing. 

McLaren was so dominate last year, I keep waiting for it to click again, who knows with the "upgrades" because F1 teams are always talking about "upgrades" lol.

Ferrari and Mercedes look really close at this point.  It was great to see Hamilton get his first win for Ferrari.  I still like the Silver Arrows this year but it is close at the top which is exciting because that is not always the case.

Thanks for such a great breakdown @Purple88!

Finally here are the updated driver standings from ESPN:

1Kimi Antonelli	179
2George Russell	154
3Lewis Hamilton	147
4Charles Leclerc	108
5Lando Norris	97
6Oscar Piastri	82
7Max Verstappen	76
8Isack Hadjar	52

On 7/9/2026 at 11:18 AM, theguru said:

Looks like the $2 Million Dollar Kid is kicking all their arses!  

 

The Belgian Grand Prix is one I circle on my calendar every year.  For me it is the best track.  Nestled deep in the Ardennes Mountains in Belgium it can rain at any time.  Almost all its corners are named with a back story.  The Run from the first turn up Eau Rouge/Radillon is the best in the business.  AND you can pass.  Novel concept, but it matters.  This year's race was a good one, but not great one.

In the 3 practices coming to the race and leading to the Qualifying Session, it was pretty much the Mercedes of Kimi Antonelli that led all drivers (who makes a mere $2 Million) who is the best balance of car and driver at this time.  

Max Verstappen is likely the best overall driver for RedBull, but his car is erratic at times and simply doesn't have the straight-line speed to keep up with the trump card; the Mercedes power unit.  BUT, that's not an automatic win.  For example, Antonelli's more seasoned Teammate George Russell sometimes has his teammates speed and sometimes not.  Kinda like he has an electrical short in his system.  But he was fortunate to start 3rd at the start after his teammate won another pole position and started first.  Russell had a pretty good start but had contact with Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) and wound up in the gravel and out of the race on lap 1.  Really bad luck.

Verstappen made a bold move up Eau Rouge on Lap 1 and in slingshot fashion got around Antonelli only to have the 19-year-old repass him going down the Kemmel Straight where the Silver Arrows (Merc) has the biggest advantage.   Charles LeClerc, Lewis Hamilton's teammate at Ferrari, had a super strong race and was in the lead pack trying to stay with Antonelli.  After Antonelli pitted, a Virtual Safety Car came out and LeClerc pitted and came out ahead of Antonelli and both behind the McLaren of Lando Norris who hadn't pitted yet.  LeClerc got by Norris rather easily, but it took Antonelli a minute to get around the Orange car, who had to take a 10-place grid penalty or he would have been in the mix at the end.

So, after Antonelli finally got around Norris he was about 4 seconds behind LeClerc, who had impressive overall speed, but not a top straight-line speed.  So Antonelli whittled the red cars lead down and eventually overtook the Ferrari man on the Kemmel Straights with about 8 laps to go.  The interesting part was that LeClerc was able to hang around Antonelli much longer than I would have thought.  This had to do with energy deployment, strengths of certain sections of the track, and just sheer determination from LeClerc.  And in the end Antonelli only won by just under 2 seconds.  LeClerc second and Verstappen held off a charging Lewis Hamilton who was harshly given a 5 second penalty for the early incident with George Russell.  

I will say I think Max Verstappen's teammate Isaac Hadjar has started to put together some impressive starts.  He planned to take a new power unit to start this race and did, but when you do that, you start at the back of the grid regardless.  Well in Qualifying, he helped his teammate Verstappen by "towing" him through some parts of the track during Q2 and Q3 sessions and pulled Verstappen all the way to starting second on the grid when he admitted he would have been 6th had it not been for that.  Verstappen won't forget that now.  He's older.  There was a time he would have just mowed over anyone for anything.  But Hadjar had a great run making it all the way to 6th place.  Well done!  That is what RedBull needs.

Racing Bulls the RedBull Little Brother team is also doing well with rookie Arvid Lindblad 9th and Liam Lawson down in 12th. 

Mercifully, Astin Martin is supposed to get upgrades for the next race next week in Hungary.  Multiple teams are supposed to have upgrades for this race, which is an important one as it is the last race before the summer break with the next race in the Netherlands not until August 23.  Should be a good one at the Hungaroring!

From Autosport:

After the opening 10 races of the 2026 F1 season, we’re still yet to see the same podium twice.