The eve of a new Formula 1 season: what better time for speculation about what’s to come? Before you start angrily slamming your hands and head into the keyboard, here’s a few things that we think could happen, even if some of them are a little bold.
Ferrari will win a championship
Come on now, it’s the Year of the Horse, how were we not going to start with this? Like everyone, we’ve been burned by the Ferrari hype train before, but the red cars looked very impressive during preseason, with a scintillating final hour on day six from Charles Leclerc especially turning heads.
Obviously this is as bold as it gets. Ferrari’s title drought goes back to the constructors’ title in 2008, while Kimi Räikkönen’s 2007 championship remains the last time a drivers’ title was won by the team. We are leaving ourselves wiggle room here in saying the Scuderia will win one of the championships this year, but with growing optimism coming out of preseason, why not?
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: Ignore history for a moment. There’s plenty of reason to feel great about this year already. While 2025 was a shambles, it might turn out to be the best thing that’s happened to Ferrari for decades as it prompted the call to shift all attention to 2026 long before its rivals. The team appears to be in a good position heading to Melbourne as a result — a reliable engine, a quick car and some lightning starts that could be a major strength for the Prancing Horse over its rivals, especially early in the year. The introduction of the “Macarena” rear wing also showed some innovation taking place behind the walls of the team’s Maranello headquarters.
Mercedes driver George Russell is the bookies’ favorite for the drivers’ title, but it’s still hard to work out where Lewis Hamilton‘s former team is in relation to his current one. Ferrari is surely coming into the season with a car that can contend for victories from the outset. If it can avoid the mistakes of 2022 and successfully upgrade the car from that point, this does not seem outlandish at all.
Leclerc seems ready to win a world championship if the car is up to snuff, but the jury might still be out on Hamilton’s readiness to do so given his torrid 2025. Last year the seven-time world champion was comprehensively out-performed by Leclerc, but the so-called “ground-effect” cars of the previous regulation cycle that he so loathed have been consigned to history. A growing feeling in the F1 paddock is the new generation will suit him much better, and he has clearly come into his sophomore Ferrari season completely revitalized.
If Hamilton is firing on all cylinders, Ferrari might well have a claim for the strongest lineup on the grid. Mercedes has Russell and the still-inconsistent Kimi Antonelli. Red Bull has Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar in the cursed other seat. McLaren has new world champion Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, but the team repeatedly fell over itself managing that dynamic last year.
All this raises the tantalizing prospect of what might happen if we see a competitive Ferrari with two competitive drivers — at the very least, a strong challenge for the constructors’ championship come the end of the season, as was the case in 2024. A situation could also pit at least one of its drivers into drivers’ championship contention in some way, although it would be fascinating to see how a team like Ferrari — famously jittery and prone to internal political implosions behind the scenes — would manage the rivalry between Leclerc and Hamilton if both were doing well in the championship. What’s Italian for “Papaya rules”?
Russell and Verstappen will collide multiple times
Russell goes into 2026 as championship favorite for the first time in his Formula 1 career. It’s been a long time coming for the Englishman, whose arrival at Mercedes rather unluckily coincided with the end of its eight-year run of constructors’ championships. Russell’s primary rival going into the season appears to be Ferrari, but a more obvious and tantalizing prospect is more regular examples of Russell battling old foe Verstappen for victories (and maybe more) this year. We think there could be fireworks from the get-go.
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: Russell and Verstappen have obvious beef. Russell called out the Dutchman ahead of the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, calling Verstappen a “bully” and saying Verstappen had threatened to put his car upside down at the previous race. Verstappen responded with a vocal volley of his own, calling Russell a “backstabber” and saying the Englishman is “just a loser.”
A flashpoint followed last year. Verstappen, irate at being told to give a position back to Russell in the closing stages of the Spanish Grand Prix, drove into the side of the Mercedes driver’s car.
This season their paths could cross more frequently and in more meaningful moments. While Russell’s rivals early on appear to be the Ferrari drivers, Red Bull appears to be very well set for the new regulations and has always made a habit of successfully and aggressively developing a car through the course of the calendar year. We should expect no different in 2026.
The idea of Russell and Verstappen being regular rivals for victories is a mouthwatering one. For one thing, it will be a chance to see if Russell’s actions on track match his words from 2024. During his criticism of Verstappen, Russell said he was tired of seeing people back down in fights against the Red Bull driver: Norris is one driver who has struggled to match Verstappen’s on-track aggression in the past few seasons, for example.
Russell has repeatedly said Hamilton gave the blueprint for how to race Verstappen in 2021 by not backing down. We all know how that went. Verstappen also won’t want to give Russell any easy ride given their longstanding beef. No one actively wants to see drivers come together on track, but these two drivers feel like they’ve been on a quite literal collision course for some time now. We’re braced for some box office racing.
Aston-Honda will not recover and Alonso will quit
What was supposed to be the start of Aston Martin’s golden era turned into a nightmare in testing. Slowest in lap times and bottom of the mileage charts, the team arrived for the new season with an overweight and underpowered Honda engine, while it also appears to be slow getting up to speed with the gearbox it is building in-house for the first time. Design legend and new team boss Adrian Newey has promised miraculous progress later in the year, but cracks in Lawrence Stroll’s super team already appear to be showing. An easy fix looks to be a long way away, and you have to wonder whether Fernando Alonso‘s already-stretched patience might have hit breaking point.
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: The scale of Honda’s problems became clear during the six days of Bahrain testing as Stroll stomped around the paddock like a shellshocked man. Alonso, still waiting to add to the titles he won in 2005 and 2006, looked like a man experiencing a horrible bout of déjà vu, given his bitterly disappointing seasons with Honda power at McLaren a decade ago.
Aston had expected to be slightly behind the curve, with its wind tunnel only coming online in April last year, around the same time Newey was finally allowed to start after leaving Red Bull, but testing suggested they will be in a fight with Cadillac not to occupy the final row of the grid in Melbourne. That is an absolutely shocking situation for this big-money team to be in.
Aston Martin and Honda’s situation may well be the ultimate stress test of the new regulations. F1 has promised the new rules will help flailing manufacturers catch up from mid-season onward under what’s known as Additional Development and Update Opportunities (ADUO). Honda’s engine already seems like a shoo in for that categorization later in the year, but additional time and resources will count for nothing if it cannot fix its problems in time. Even with ADUO, its rivals will not be standing still.
Then there’s the uncomfortable reality that Honda is the scapegoat for now, but is probably not the only issue. Stroll’s trigger-happy hiring habits have created a leadership vacuum at the top, and sources have told ESPN the kind of toxic blame culture Ferrari used to be infamous for now exists at Aston Martin. Newey, whose personality seems wholly unsuited to his new role of team principal, locked himself away from the media during the two weeks of Bahrain testing: rudderless teams with zero accountability rarely survive inquisitions such as the one Aston Martin is now facing.
All of this leaves the obvious questions about Alonso’s future beyond 2026, or if he even makes it to the end of this season. Aston’s malaise might have given him an obvious chance to stay on, as Stroll’s superteam has suddenly become one of the most unattractive long-term options to any of Alonso’s rivals, but why would he do it to himself? The Spaniard is now 44 and will be 45 when he lines up at the first ever Madrid Grand Prix in September. He’s waited and waited to be delivered the title contender his talent deserves, but it looks like Aston Martin and Honda have just served him up another dud. While we respect him toughing it out to this point, we at ESPN just can’t imagine him sticking around into 2027.
The four top teams all will win before the summer break
F1’s new rules have created a lot of things — an intriguing new competitive order and cars that are, undoubtedly, very difficult to understand. All the doom and gloom surrounding the new engine formula might be eradicated if we get something like 2012, which featured six different winners in the opening seven races.
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: The so-called Big Four spent the preseason pointing at each other like the Spider-Man meme, insisting everyone else was quick when they were not. A lot of that might have been gamesmanship, but it also maybe hinted at something deeper about these regulations: no one is certain what they have.
Oddly for a new rule change, the top four seemed pretty close, judging by preseason. Usually new regulations propel one team far clear of the others, but F1 might have miraculously avoided this. While the order seems pretty clear going to Melbourne — Mercedes and Ferrari vying for top spot, with McLaren and Red Bull vying for third a little way back — the promise of the new regulations has been rapid progress. Paddock sources have told ESPN that the expectation is that upgrade packages could vault teams forward, which would be huge if the lead group is all close together come March 8.
Then you consider the huge swings in performance we might see from these cars. Mercedes has still given no reason to think it’s anything other than the benchmark, but it seems oddly anxious about its preseason favorite tag. It has been suggested that Ferrari’s smaller turbo, which helps produce its incredible starts, will struggle on power-sensitive circuits, but it looked absolutely phenomenal at times over the Bahrain test. Rivals seemed impressed by Red Bull’s power deployment down the straights, and it’s clear the Red Bull-Ford partnership has pulled a blinder with its new engine project relative to where many expected it to be at this stage. We don’t know much about McLaren, but if it has managed to keep its tire-degradation advantage over the rest,that will be a huge factor. Even if it hasn’t, McLaren successfully won championships with its customer Mercedes engine in the past two seasons, so it would be foolish to think it will just fall in line behind the German manufacturer this season once it gets its head around the new equipment.
If nothing else, that’s a superb state of affairs going into the first race. Sure, it could all be blown out of the water if one team dominates Australia, but while we can still enjoy it, we’re predicting a wild start to the sport’s new era of racing.
Horner will return to F1 with Alpine
After agreeing a payout with Red Bull last year, Christian Horner has to wait until June of this year before he can announce a return to Formula 1, but talks behind the scenes are ongoing. His options are limited, and it is known that Horner wants to return to F1 with financial skin in the game after being unceremoniously booted from his last gig. There’s no way Horner wants his F1 career to end like that.
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: This is perhaps a more straightforward one, as talks are already ongoing, for a start, but ESPN’s understanding is a deal is a long way from being completed. Alpine has seemed like the most obvious place for Horner for a while — Otro Capital, which bought a 23% stake in the team for £171 million in 2023, is known to be looking to sell — and Horner and a team of investors are believed to be looking at that option.
While those things are slowly moving behind the scenes, the main reason we think this will happen is because of how much Alpine needs it. The old Renault factory team, which this year looks to be in a good place with a Mercedes engine deal, has lacked strong leadership for some time. With that has come a confusing lack of clarity about its identity. Horner is the only free agent in Formula 1 with a consistent track record of success at that level, and his experience would be invaluable, especially at a moment when it appears ready to turn a corner competitively.
Piastri will win more races than Norris
For half of 2025, Piastri looked like a mini Verstappen: cool, collected, unflappable. After his win at the Dutch Grand Prix, it seemed like he had one hand on the championship, but his form spiraled from there. The Australian admitted the Papaya rules team order at Monza got in his head, and his nightmare, crash-strewn weekend in Azerbaijan is where the season really started to get away from him. As Piastri started to falter, Norris’ form picked up, and the British driver’s resurgence was enough to carry him to a maiden career championship.
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: Piastri finished last season in a much stronger position, winning at Qatar’s penultimate race and then driving strongly at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, even if his result was not enough to wrestle the title away from Norris. His dip in form was poorly timed in relation to the championship fight, but there’s no reason to think Piastri became a bad driver overnight. Getting away for a brief offseason break might have done him the world of good.
We know McLaren will continue with a “streamlined” version of Papaya rules this year, but early indications are that Piastri is putting himself into a stronger position to deal with whatever comes from that. He’s already made one big change during the offseason: he’s put a bit of distance between himself and manager Mark Webber, who will still oversee commercial matters but will step away from such a prominent role at race weekends. Piastri has linked back up with former F2 race engineer Pedro Matos and will be traveling more often with a headspace coach.
This is meant as no disrespect to F1’s new world champion. Norris was spectacular at points, but it remains to be seen where his motivation levels are now he has the No. 1 on his car for the first time. Piastri was arguably the more impressive McLaren driver for much of 2025, and if he can rekindle some of that form, coupled with a slightly different approach behind the scenes, we can see him flipping the internal dynamic on its head.
Bearman will podium for Haas
Haas’ thunder as F1’s only American team has been somewhat stolen by Cadillac’s grand arrival this year, but it goes into 2026 in a great place. ESPN’s predicted running order had Haas sixth, but it might as well have been a coin toss between it and Alpine for fifth, given how close the two looked in Bahrain. An impressive feat for F1’s smallest team, which still has yet to finish a grand prix higher than fourth in its 10 years of existence — something we think that could be about to change this year.
Why it’s not an outrageous suggestion: Haas looks set to be a thrilling feature of the upper midfield this year. Ayao Komatsu’s squad looks to have delivered a good car to go with Ferrari’s impressive engine and it could be well placed to be one of the surprise packages Formula 1 always sees in a new regulation cycle. Ferrari’s lightning starts will also likely see Haas’ cars propelled into strong positions in the early weeks of the year at the very least, and there’s no guarantee the new cars have made overtaking any easier. While Haas’ pace is unlikely to be close to the Big Four, opportunity usually knocks for teams in the upper midfield at some point over the course of a 24-race calendar.
Enter the Oliver Bearman half of our prediction. The Englishman was one of 2025’s standout performers and looks to be on a rapid ascension to a Ferrari move in the future. His spectacular drive to fourth in Mexico was the high point in his rookie season, which featured the normal blips you would expect from a 20-year-old in his first F1 season. Importantly, the highs were very high indeed, and Haas was thoroughly impressed by his performance level. Bearman being equipped with a competitive car in the midfield is a thrilling prospect.
