The Victors

1. Toto and Max went yachting over the summer break together again. No rash of Max to Mercedes rumors this time. It appears that ship has sailed as Mercedes seems content with George and Kimi with Kimi having a great shot at winning the Driver's Championship this season. George has had some disappointing finishes but Toto has defended him on the fact that he didn't finish two races because of a software glitch they believe they may have fixed and another race he was slowed after a collision with Lewis when he had a damaged wing. Pursuant to his contract, Max can leave Red Bull because he is not in the top two drivers at this time, but there doesn't seem to be anywhere for him to go. Mercedes and McLaren aren't looking, and Aston Martin has the money but a pos car. IMHO, if Max stays I F1 racing, it will be with Red Bull and Max getting some incredible contract that may include a small ownership piece of one or both teams.

2. Lots or rumors about other drivers looking for somewhere the grass is greener, but where are they going to go? Ocon seems like he could be in trouble at Haas, but that would be a spot for a young guy as Haas is considered a fairly undesirable spot for the long term. They have a decent car but they are a considerably smaller team than the others and heavily reliant on Ferrari for far more than the engine (Williams, McLaren and Alpine are Mercedes teams, but McLaren does most of their own aero, suspension, exct.). Haas brings limited improvements over the course of the season, because they are a small racing team with limited resources. Bearman, they say, will jump if opportunities are presented at Alpine, Aston Martin (despite the pos car), or possibly even Williams. Sainz is not happy at Williams and Perez is not happy at Cadillac but options for open seats to upgrade are limited. Sainz was looking at Audi given the family connections, but now rumors are he will stay with Williams. Perez may move to Audi though.


3. One of the big issues with Cadillac that purportedly prompted in part the fall out with the former Principal Lowdon was Caddy's recent move to relocate the racing team to Indy. Purportedly everyone in the UK has been told that if they would like to stay with Caddy racing, they need to relocate to the States. Many writers and those that follow F1 racing are shocked as traditionally teams are located in the UK because of the proximity to all of the European tracks and well basically tradition. But Ferrari is based in Italy, though they have a presence in the UK, wile Caddy has apparently no intention of keeping any facilities in the UK.

4. Ferrari is bringing a new floor to Holland with a new engine to follow when the competition moves to Italy for the Grand Prix at Monza. Ferrari is confident that they have caught or even slightly gained an advantage over Mercedes. They are very confident that they are in the right direction.

5. Mercedes, however, changed their mind about upgrades this year. With their great start and Kimi charging to the front of the leaderboard, the decision was made to push upgrades and portions of the budget off to '27 improvements. But, Ferrari and McLaren's upgrades have raised a challenge and Mercedes will respond with a major aero upgrade this weekend and a new engine, possibly before Ferrari's is unveiled. Concerning its next 3 rounds of upgrades which include two major aero upgrades and a new engine, it has been described as Mega, Mega and Mega. Mercedes feels that they can really take the '26 car to an entirely different level and they have Red Bull to thank for it, as Red Bull outperforming them by 2% in the ICE testing led to Mercedes getting one extra engine improvement this season and $ and testing time. Ferrari got even a bigger benefit being 4% out with additional improvements this year and next year and extra testing time and $. Red Bull is furious having realized that Mercedes exploited the testing system to come out behind Red Bull, but their appeals have gone nowhere.

4. Teams get 3 engines for the season and they can replace an existing engine with one of the reserves but can't do engine improvements that improve performance but only those that improve durability or reliability. The special credit given after testing allows performance improvements and both Mercedes and Ferrari are taking advantage.

5. While Mercedes gets an engine improvement permission, they still are going to have to take a penalty when Kimi uses his 4th engine. He is not going to make it through the season with 3 so they are like to take a grid penalty when they introduce a 4th engine. Most of the drivers in the top 1//3 of standings will take a penalty at some point for a 4th engine, and the drivers in the bottom 2/3 may even take more penalties because it doesn't actually mean as much to take a grid penalty when you aren't making the 3rd round of qualifiers anyway.

6. Red Bull is totally invested in '27 at this point. No major upgrades.

7. McLaren has probably had the most significant upgrades of the season and they have several more. They believe they can at least push Mercedes.

8. The Bahrain Grand Prix will take place, though it will be raised in Malaysia on October 4. They moved for the obvious reason of the Iran war and military action, drones, exct., in the area. Saudi Arabian and Qatar are being discussed. It is likely that one will be moved and the other just dropped. The Qatar Grand Prix will most likely be moved to Imola, since Imola was hosting Grand Prix as recently as last season. Portugal is another possibility as it is scheduled to come on the Calendar every other year beginning next year.

9. Huerta is not going to get his super license, as he hasn't done that well in F2, so any note notion of his driving for Caddy is not going to happen. Young drivers to keep an eye on are current F2 leader Nikolo Tsolov and 3rd place Rafael Camara. They rave about Camara in the Ferrari academy system and would like to see him at Haas next season with it possible that Ocon gets pushed out or Bearman moves on to Alpine or Aston Martin should they have an opening (and Ferrari agree to the move).

10. Aston Martin has major upgrades planned, so many that it is basically a completely new car for the second half of the season. But, they have so many obstacles to overcome to become competitive, they are just hoping to climb towards the top of the middle of the pack teams but so far they whiffed.