Key events
When the new Formula One season begins on Sunday in the usual fever of excitement and anticipation, consider amid the maelstrom the Cadillac team. Before the lights go out in Melbourne, F1’s newest entrant will have a deserved chance to take a breath and savour for but a moment, their remarkable achievement of simply having made it to the grid.
The sweeping changes to regulations this year were always going to present new opportunities and the consensus is that it’s Mercedes that will have the pace heading into the new season – something which has played out across FP2 and FP3.
“FP1 looked positive, but then [in] FP2 the teams are showing little by little, a bit more. Unfortunately, we seem to be on the back foot – especially compared to Mercedes, [they] seem to be very, very strong,” Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc said yesterday.
“I don’t think they showed everything on low fuel, but on high fuel, it was very impressive. I mean it’s the first time probably we see how much there is to them.
“[They had] a bit more [pace] than what I would have liked, but it’s the way it is. On the other side, it’s been quite a positive start on the weekend, and we’ll keep working very hard to maximise everything for tomorrow.
“For the rest of the weekend, it’s all about putting everything together. In qualifying, I have the feeling that it can be quite close.
“In the race, it seems that Mercedes has quite a lot of performance coming, but we’ll see.”
The bookmakers have installed George Russell as the favourite to take out this year’s drivers’ title and the Brit has cut a quietly confident figure – albeit almost everyone has been relatively quiet to now, not wanting to give any hints – heading into the first race of the season.
The 2026 Grid
Just a year on from getting approval to take the grid in 2026, the arrival of Cadillac to F1 has ushered in the return of Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas to the grid for the 2026 campaign, with the American manufacturer – who will be powered by Ferrari until they transition to an in-house power unit – opting for experience behind the wheel in their debut season.
While not technically a start-up like Cadillac, Audi will also race for the first time this year, taking over from over Kick Sauber, whom they purchased in 2024 with the intent on fielding a factory team in this first year of the new regulations.
Ford, meanwhile, is back as an engine supplier for the first time since it powered Jordan in 2004, partnering with Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls following their split with Honda. The Japanese supplier, for their part, are now supplying Aston Martin.
After the demotion of Yuki Tsunoda to test and reserve driver, Isack Hadjar has made the step-up to Red Bull Racing from Racing Bulls, with his seat taken by British driver Arvid Lindblad, who is making the step-up from Formula 2.
The 2026 Grid:
Franco Colapinto Alpine
Pierre Gasly Alpine
Lance Stroll Aston Martin
Fernando Alonso Aston Martin
Nico Hulkenberg Audi
Gabriel Bortoleto Audi
Valtteri Bottas Cadillac
Sergio Perez Cadillac
Charles Leclerc Ferrari
Lewis Hamilton Ferrari
Esteban Ocon Haas
Oliver Bearman Haas
Lando Norris (C) McLaren
Oscar Piastri McLaren
George Russell Mercedes
Kimi Antonelli Mercedes
Liam Lawson Racing Bulls
Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls
Max Verstappen Red Bull
Isack Hadjar Red Bull
Carlos Sainz Williams
Alex Albon Williams
Lando Norris recalls being rendered speechless with joy when he was given his first contract with McLaren. Sitting in the cramped office of a paddock truck, the confirmation that he had made it to Formula One left him “very smiley for a long time”. Seven years on, he enters the new season having achieved his lifelong ambition of becoming world champion and is wearing an equally irrepressible grin as he sets about defending his title.
For the first time, Lando Norris will enter the season as champion, seeing off a late charge by Max Verstappen during the tail end of the 2025 to break the Dutchman’s longstanding stranglehold on the driver’s championship.
And as he told Giles Richards last month, the Brit feels ready to go back-to-back.
If you’re just popping your head back in for the first time since last season, I’m afraid there’s a whole new vocabulary that you’re going to need to come to grips with. There’s now hybrid engines and active aerodynamics to contend with, as well as the departure of the DRS and the arrival of overtake mode and recharge mode.
Didn’t do the required reading and have no idea what I’m talking about? Don’t worry, Giles Richards has you covered.
Of course, this is F1, where every team is doing everything they can to harness the most amount of speed possible from their cars – with their tinkering always pushing right up against the limit of what is or may be acceptable under the regulations.
Thus, we’ve already had a blow-up under the new regulations before a race has even been staged, this one focused on accusations that Mercedes’ had used thermal expansion of components to exploit a loophole in regulations surrounding engine compression ratios.
Preamble
Joey Lynch
Howdy all, it’s ya boi Joey Lynch here, and welcome to The Guardian’s live coverage of the opening round of the 2026 Formula One campaign, emanating to you from a somewhat cloudy Melbourne.
It’s been a long build-up to the new campaign, one which reached a dramatic crescendo over the past fortnight when the United States and Israel’s attack on Iran spilled over into rocket and drone attacks and the shuttering of air space and cancellations of flights across the Middle East.
Not only did this disrupt preparations, but it also forced up to a thousand members of F1’s travelling roadshow to make new new travel arrangements that would enable them to land Down Under in time. Fortunately, pretty much all of them have.
The tour’s trip to albert park this year also marks the first time we’re seeing teams compete under the new, wide-ranging regulations in action that have been put in place for 2026: the cars made smaller in size and weight with the intent of making them more nimble facilitating improved racing and powered by new, hybrid engines.
We got our first look at these new beasts in action yesterday during FP1 and FP2, with the Mercedes-powered teams delivering on the expectations that they’ll be on the ones to beat by going fastest in FP2 (we’ll always have FP1, Ferrari). Much of the day’s events, however, where overshadowed by whatever the heck is going on at Aston Martin and the non-zero possibility that the cars might vibrate so hard they’ll send Fernando Alonso into the speed force if he pushes the car too hard.
And with qualification taking place today, we’ve got even more to look forward to. That starts at 4pm AEDT/5am GMT.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/mar/07/australian-grand-prix-f1-melbourne-qualifying-live
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