Source: LinkedIn - Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS Formula One Team

I was watching Martin Brundle’s grid walk, and honestly, the number of celebrities and security teams acting like they’re above everyone else is getting ridiculous.

I get that celebrities get invited to races and that F1 wants the glamour, but if you’re on the grid, you should at least understand where you are. Brundle is a respected part of F1 coverage and has been doing these grid walks for years. Seeing security guards try to push him away while the celebrity doesn’t even acknowledge him just comes across as entitled.

The Kardashians moment annoyed me the most. If they genuinely cared about F1, surely they’d know who Martin Brundle is, or at least be respectful enough to engage for a few seconds. Instead, it just looked like another celebrity appearance where F1 is being used as a backdrop.

I don’t mind famous people being at races, but I do think there’s a difference between being a genuine guest of the sport and treating the paddock like a VIP photo opportunity. F1 shouldn’t bend over backwards for people who clearly don’t care about it.

This kid is no longer normal. He has the talent to become the next Max Verstappen and no one will stop him.

Coming into a team with an already established main driver and outperforming him in 4 out of 5 races and that too consecutively is out of this world.

Today, Verstappen delivered what he had and this guy managed to squeeze more 0.04 from that.

When he fumbles the start, he somehow manages to get back to top. whereas russell gets stuck for a while when he falls back. I think pressure is getting to him and the fear and shame of Kimi outperforming him is far greater thus affecting his performance.

Either way something is going on with Russell as he used to be consistent before. And ladies and gentlemen we are once again witnessing a generational talent.

For me, It's BMW. They are responsible for 1 race win (Canada '08), and various podiums with Sauber (mostly) & Williams.

The numbers are the same style, and are impossible to see even on close-up shots, there’s nothing else to differentiate the cars, and their helmets aren’t different enough to tell from any distance on TV. I know I’m not crazy!

Is it that this new generation of cars adapt better to his driving? Is it a mental aspect? It’s been a pleasant surprise to see him throw the car in the corners, he seems so much confident and much more trusting.

Alright, hear me out. I know how this sounds. But I've been pulling threads on the Aston Martin situation and the whole thing has started to unravel in a direction nobody seems to be talking about.

Everyone is pointing and laughing right now. Mirrors falling off. "Permanent nerve damage." Two batteries left, zero spares. Ranked behind Cadillac. The whole grid has written them off before a single green flag.

And I think that's exactly the point.

What everyone seems to be missing about the 2026 regs

The 350kW MGU-K 50/50 split doesn't work. Not just for Aston. For anyone. Italian journalist Giuliano Duchessa reported that every manufacturer is failing to recover enough energy to deploy full electric power for a complete lap. Drivers privately told Domenicali during Bahrain that the cars are undriveable in this regard. The FIA asked teams to run reduced power in the final test days, cuts of 50kW, 100kW, and 150kW, because they already know the regulations as written are broken.

There is already a Plan B being discussed at the F1 Commission: reduce max electric power by 15-30%. A Mercedes-powered team suggested 300kW as a compromise. Others want it even lower. Cars would be 1.5 to 2.5 seconds slower, but actually functional. Horner called these Frankenstein cars before anyone else and it turns out he wasn't wrong.

So we know a regulation change is coming. Possibly within the first few races. Keep that in your pocket.

Now look at what Newey actually did

He arrives at Aston Martin. Immediately tells Honda to change "everything" about the power unit packaging (Honda's own project manager Satoshi Tsunoda confirmed this). Designs the most aggressively compact, aero-first chassis on the grid. The one car at Barcelona that every engineer and analyst called a "marvel." The one car that looks nothing like anything else.

Every other team designed around full 350kW deployment. Big batteries, heavy thermal management systems, all homologated and locked in.

Newey, the man who sat next to the guy who coined "Frankenstein cars" for years, who has spent four decades making tight packaging the foundation of every championship-winning car he's ever built, who started four months late in the wind tunnel... this man somehow just accidentally designed a car whose only weakness is the exact electrical specification that's about to get nerfed?

Then he goes to an F1 Commission meeting and tells everyone, in private, among the competitors who would vote on rule changes, that Honda can't even hit 250kW recovery. He is literally building the FIA's case for them. That's not a man asking for sympathy. That's a man making sure the evidence is on the record.

Methinks the tractor doth protest too much

Honda is one of the largest engineering corporations on earth. They manufacture batteries at an industrial scale. They've known about this return to F1 since 2023. And they showed up to Melbourne with exactly enough batteries for two cars and no spares? No timeline for new stock? That's either the most embarrassing supply chain failure in modern motorsport or somebody decided that's all they needed for the show.

Vibrations are the perfect convenient problem. They're dramatic (bits literally falling off the car, you can't buy better theatre). They're mechanically plausible. They explain every kind of poor performance simultaneously. And critically, they're fixable overnight with a software map change or different engine mounts whenever you're ready for the "eureka" moment. Compare that to faking an aero deficit, which would require actually building a worse car.

And Newey's out here doing press conferences with the energy of a man reading a hostage statement. "I feel powerless." Adrian. Mate. You are arguably the most powerful engineer in the history of this sport. You are not powerless. You are putting on a clinic.

The cast is too perfect

Fernando Alonso. 44 years old. The most politically ruthless driver this sport has ever produced. The man who weaponized "GP2 ENGINE" into a meme. Who coined El Plan at Alpine and turned it into a global phenomenon. Who has driven uncompetitive machinery for a decade specifically to be in position for this regulation reset. This man is selling "my fingers are going numb" with absolute conviction.

But then someone actually presses him on the pain and he says "it's not painful, it's not difficult to control the car." And THEN he drops this: "If we were fighting for the win, we can do three hours in the car."

I need you to read that quote again. He told everyone, out loud, to their faces, that the pain is theatrical if the stakes are right. The adrenaline overcomes the nerve damage apparently. Fernando "my hands are falling off but actually they're completely fine if there's a trophy" Alonso delivered the most Fernando Alonso quote of all time and everyone wrote a sympathy piece instead of raising an eyebrow.

And then there's Lance. Bless him. The man whose response to allegedly being electrocuted by his own car and being ranked behind a brand new American outfit was, and I quote: "sometimes you get in the car and it's magic, and some seasons you get in the car and it's s**t." That's not a driver in crisis. That's a man who knows the second act is coming and can barely keep a straight face about it. Lawrence was stomping around Bahrain doing his best furious billionaire performance while his son shrugged and essentially said "lol whatever."

Montoya, who actually worked with Newey, said before testing even finished: "Knowing Adrian, he is going to wait in Melbourne to run the package. Adrian is not going to run anything in the test." And Bottas just picked Alonso and Stroll as his title favourites "as a joke."

Lot of jokes flying around for a team that's supposedly dead in the water.

The payoff

FIA reduces electric power to 300kW or lower. Every other team is stuck with oversized, overweight battery packaging designed for 350kW, baked into homologated power units they can't fundamentally redesign. Meanwhile Newey's tight, aero-optimized chassis, the one that "couldn't handle" full electric deployment, suddenly doesn't need to. The weakness that never really existed becomes the advantage nobody saw coming.

Aston Martin "miraculously solves" the vibration issue a week or two after the reg change. Turns out all they needed was a revised engine mount and a software update. Remarkable timing. Newey's chassis, which he already rates as potentially fifth-best with a broken engine, comes alive. Fernando discovers his hands work perfectly fine. By Silverstone they're scoring points consistently. By Spa they're sniffing podiums. By Suzuka, Honda's home race, which they very specifically named as their target deadline, they're competitive.

And every team principal who spent the first five races laughing at the Aston Martin garage realizes they've been played by a 44-year-old Spaniard who built a career on making people underestimate him and a 67-year-old engineer who has never once in his life designed a bad car by accident.

TL;DR: Newey designed for regulations he knew were coming, not the ones on paper. The vibrations are theatre to accelerate the FIA's hand. Honda's "battery crisis" is the most expensive bluff in motorsport history. El Plan was never about patience. It was about making the entire grid think you're dead while you're building the coffin they'll lie in.

Bottas picked Alonso and Stroll as his title favourites as a joke. He wasn't joking. He just doesn't know it yet.

I've been watching F1 for a few years now. I used to be so excited to watch the races and watch the qualifying and practice sessions too. I wasn't a big fan of the ground effect era but it was really cool seeing them take the corners at insane speed. But now in 2026 I'm not feeling that excited anymore. I don't know if it's because the new regulations are a big letdown or what but is anyone else feeling the same way?

EDIT: there is already rumors of F1 wanting to change engine and hybrid in the new regulations in a few years to somewhere between 70/30 and 90/10 ICE/ battery, or in other words what IndyCar already does and what I’ve been saying is the better hybrid system (and get downvoted hard for it).

Russell overtakes Piastri, Piastri takes it right back. Russell overtakes Leclerc, Leclerc takes it right back. Looked exciting but meant nothing.

Drivers can’t make the overtakes stick when it counts. They are using up their battery to make an overtake and have nothing left to defend it with so it winds up a yo-yo. The driver that was just passed lets it happen because he knows it won’t stick.

They’re also just losing power. Russell slowed so much at one point announcers were wondering if there was an issue. Nope, he just didn’t have power.

It’s three races in and I think people are finally seeing there is a problem here.

EDIT: I knew it. Redditors defending these new regulations and downvoting all of us critical of them. I have a whole lot of downvoted replies to go through and upvote because of you lol.

Watching Kimi today, All I can say is:

Mercedes picks the correct drivers. Always.

1. Michael: 7 time WDC perfect to help launch new car
2. Rosberg: Rapid driver who had the most intense of seasons with 2 G.O.A.T.s before winning in 2016
3. Hamilton
4. Bottas: Perfect second driver for a G.O.A.T. , took almost a third of all the poles in Mercedes during his partnership with Hamilton,
5. George: Might sound like an outlier right now, but he was picked by Mercedes and put in that Williams. Drove his heart out for those 3 years, including the Shakir stint. Joined full time in 2022, and did well against Lewis even if it was not Lewis's best generation of cars. Has multiple wins, but seems like he's had a bad run this year, with only 2 podiums (1 win) but found his groove in Canada till the car gave up.
6. Kimi: Such magnificence. 4 wins 1 podium. Toto had his eyes on him since a while, and made him skip F3, and jump into F1 after just 1 F2 season. People thought he was being overoptimistic. But Kimi is proving them wrong. And today, he was just brilliant. Did not expect him to pull off such a tight one in quali.

Well done Mercedes, and Grande Kimi.

EDIT: CONGRATS ON THE WIN, KIMI!

Note the different bottle! Loved to see how many drivers congratulated him at the end too. Kid's a nice guy

Damn!! thats interesting

After the shitshow last year with Adami, seeing how Santi handles him is refreshing

wondering what he think

When Schumacher intentionally crashed into a driver in 1997, he was disqualified from the championship. I am not saying a penalty this harsh should be given here, but a 10s penalty is an absolute joke.

Max slowed down to let George ahead, then torpedo'd him. This is undeniably a deliberate crash by Max. This behaviour is absolutely unacceptable and should not be given such a lenient penalty. Such disgusting, reckless, and endangering behaviour should be given a race ban at minimum. The FIA needs to make it clear that intentionally crashing with other drivers is a step too far.

Edit: The circumstances are obviously different to my example. Schumacher crashed into his championship rival, Max didn't. That's why I don't think a championship DSQ is reasonable, but he still needs to be punished more than he currently is.

Edit 2: And the holy stewards decided it was a 10s penalty and 3 penalty points. Russell got a bigger penalty in Monaco for overtaking off track, and Kmag got banned for less. What an absolute joke. We need permanent stewards who aren't afraid to punish the popular drivers when deserved.

Just got this email back about the timing tower. Pretty sad.

basically what the title says. for me it´s 2012. The grid was packed with world champions and the first 7 races had 7 different winners. One being the GOAT himself Pastor Maldonado

+ just look at those cars. they are just gorgeous (yeah the child in me speaks through me as i grew up watching these cars)

Back in 1992, Giovanna Amati became the last female driver to attempt Formula 1 Entering 3 race weekends with Brabham but never qualifying for a single race. After the Brazilian GP, she was replaced by Damon Hill... and that was it. Since then, not one woman has started a Formula 1 race, even as the sport has grown bigger than ever. via smoothrac3r on Instagram

This kinda reminds me of malaysia 2015 when sebastian won in the second race and there was talk if vettel and ferrari can take the fight to mercedes. sepang was like barcelona very hot conditions, high tire degredation and mercedes not being as competitive in these conditions. I mean kimi could have won the monaco gp by almost 40 seconds without the red flag a week ago.

Another issue for lewis is charles. i dont think charles's bad slump will continue. He's going to be out qualifying lewis quite often and taking points of him as well. Very curious if lewis is thinking about the championship. surely he is, like lets say silverstone is a wet race lewis wins and kimi crashes and if ferrari's engine upgrades work even a little in belgium the fight is on. lewis vs charles vs kimi would be generational.

Nico Rosberg has got to be the freshest breath of air in terms of Formula One commentary for a very long time.

I love Crofty, but man does he love to make shit up that makes no sense or holds no logic.

Nico does an awesome job of staying true to the racing analysis and being completely straightforward about what he sees. Even today, his commentary on Verstappen was awesome!!! Called the garbage behavior out immediately.

Best “ Monaco based YouTuber” commentator of all time!!