The first 11 rounds of the championship were interesting enough however there are 12 more rounds to go in the 2026 Formula 1 season, meaning there is much more action to come. Here’s what to look out for as we head into the final stretch of the year.
Kimi Antonelli leads the championship as we head into the final stretch of the season.
The first thing to look out for is championship turnarounds. As of current, Kimi Antonelli dominates the championship with a 50 point gap to Lewis Hamilton in 2nd and a 59 point gap to his teammate George Russell in 3rd. It will be interesting to see if Kimi Antonelli can keep up this run of form to close out the season or if anyone can put the pressure on. Is a Russell comeback on the cards? He’s had a rough start to the season, on race weekends he’s either struggling for raw pace and when he’s not struggling he gets unlucky and his car combusts. In the second half of the year will George be able to put his woes behind him and claw back at his teammates lead? Another intriguing possibility is Hamilton going on a championship charge. After his 2025 season at Ferrari nobody expected him to come into 2026 this strong. He currently sits in 2nd in the standings. Is it possible for Lewis to fight for his 8th? Ferrari are bringing aggressive upgrades and with Mercedes reliability issues, it is not impossible. Likewise could Norris comeback with an improving McLaren? Heading into the summer break he claimed his first race win of the year and his pace was incredible. Are things looking up for the reigning world champion or am I being too optimistic?
There are also plenty more upgrades to come. Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull are being aggressive with their upgrade strategies. It has been revealed that Mercedes have decided to hold off until Singapore to introduce their major upgrade now, which was meant to arrive in Zandvoort. They will still bring minor upgrades to the Dutch Grand Prix though. Outside of the big four, Honda are meant to be bringing an engine upgrade for Aston Martin that is to add an additional 30 horsepower. If this upgrade works they might be a lot more competitive in the second half of the year as they have now upgraded their chassis
One of the only pieces of news over the summer break was Cadillac sacking team principal Graeme Lowdon and replacing him with Marcin Budkowski. We do not know a lot about why the change was actually made, but Cadillac F1 chief Dan Towriss revealed the change was not mutually agreed and the change came “sooner than expected” although they had always known Lowdon would be replaced at some point. Lets see if this change boosts their performance at the back of the pack.
The biggest news of the summer break was a team pricipal change
The summer break was lacking in one area: driver contract announcements. Heading into 2027 only 8 drivers have a confirmed seat at their current teams. Lando and Oscar will stay at McLaren, Hamilton and Leclerc will stay at Ferrari, Verstappen should stay at Red Bull (at least he has a contract), Gasly remains at Alpine, and Bottas and Perez will remain at Cadillac. That leaves 14 drivers with contract announcements waiting to be made, and some drivers are very unhappy where they are. Sainz may be looking to move away from Williams following disappointments with the 2026 car. James Vowles had promised him a much better car and the team so far have not delivered. Other drivers such as Ocon are under intense pressure following weak performances recently. Rumours have been swirling that Haas might look to bring in another driver, 2025 F2 Champion Leonardo Fornaroli looking like a good replacement.
Finally, one of the more interesting aspects of the second half of this season is the tracks we will visit. Our first weekend back will be a farewell to Zandvoort. 3 weeks later we visit Madring for the first time. This looks like it’s going to be an interesting weekend as we genuinely do not know what we’re in for, we have never seen a race here before so it will be full of unknowns for the teams and fans. The other notable track of the second half of the season will be the Bahrain Grand Prix hosted in Malaysia. Malaysia was an active circuit in F1 from 1999 to 2017 but for 9 years we have not seen a race there. It makes it’s return following the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix amid the conflict in the middle east. It will be interesting to see this well loved track by Formula One fans back in action.
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