After many new regulation changes, the F1 2026 season is officially underway. With Cadillac officially joining the motorsport, everyone was excited for the promising upcoming season.
The 11 teams headed to practice, where all 22 drivers, including well-known drivers like Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, and Lewis Hamilton assessed the cars that they would be dealing with for the rest of the season.
Both Ferrari and Mercedes looked like they had the fastest cars in practice, which is a change from last season, as McLaren had the fastest car on the grid.
After practice, the drivers headed to the race weekend, where they took to the track for the first qualifying session of the season.
As Max Verstappen was on the track in Q1, an incident happened that would see him start from almost the back of the grid in P20.
As qualifying finished, it would be George Russell taking pole and his teammate, Kimi Andrea Antonelli, finishing in P2 and the newly promoted Red Bull Driver and Max Verstappen’s teammate, Isack Hadjar, would pick up a P3.
The teams would then head to the grid for the first time this season, and Mercedes would be looking like the team to watch after they both locked out the front row in qualifying on Saturday.
The race would start, and Leclerc barged through along with his teammate Lewis Hamilton, as it wouldn’t have the brightest of starts.
We would see a brilliant battle between George Russell and Charles Leclerc for the race win as Antonelli watched in P3, and Max Verstappen would be in the background.
However, after Leclerc pitted, it seemed that the Mercedes were able to jump him and he would have to tuck behind in P3 after the two Mercedes were able to see out their 1-2 finish.
Lewis would just miss out on his first podium for Ferrari as he would settle for P4, and the 2025 F1 world champion, Lando Norris, would only finish in P5 while his teammate, Oscar Piastri, would crash before the race even started. A poor constructor’s title defence for McLaren.
However, Max Verstappen would move up the grid slowly to go from P20 all the way to P6 by the end of the race, and he would walk away with eight important points.
What to Expect This Season
In Australia, we saw two teams battle it out the entire race weekend. If this weekend has given any information, it is that these two teams might actually be dominant again.
Ferrari has had their golden days with drivers like Michael Schumacher and Aryton Senna, but it really struggled the last few seasons. However, the drivers are not to blame; it is rather the entire team.
Every year, Ferrari sets its high ambitions to go for both the Constructor’s championship and, more importantly, the Driver’s championship. However, these expectations are crushed because of small mistakes made in every race. Even when Ferrari had officially signed Lewis Hamilton for the 2025 season, everyone had their hopes high; however, Ferrari failed to give the 7-time world champion a car that could compete for the Driver’s championship or even a podium.
This season, things look a lot different for Ferrari. Although Leclerc couldn’t win the race, there were still promising signs for Ferrari; even in the practice sessions, they had the second fastest time. However, there was a reason why they were the second fastest, Mercedes.
Mercedes has been a very successful team in F1 for many seasons now. After Lewis Hamilton left McLaren with 1 championship, he moved to Mercedes, where he won six Driver’s championships to make him one of the greats of the sport.
Although Mercedes was still a solid team, they began to start slipping up and make a few mistakes, which convinced Lewis to join Ferrari, and it did seem like Ferrari was on the rise, especially with Charles Leclerc.
However, after coming in second for the Constructors championship with 469 points, Mercedes began to finally find pace after a few years of falling off the top.
This season, they have two great drivers, who they believe can get them to a Driver’s championship, George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.
Although both McLaren and Red Bull can still compete, they didn’t look very convincing. Although Max Verstappen gained 14 places, it wasn’t enough for a podium, and although Lando finished P5, it is still a poor title defence for him.
However, F1 is a very unpredictable sport in which anything can happen.
“From the start, George Russell seems pretty good, so I think Russell will win this season”, said sophomore Farbentz Vixamar.
The 2026 F1 season is off to a great start after the regulation reset, and fans are excited to see how this season unfolds.
