6 bold F1 predictions for the 2026 season

PLUS: Max Verstappen looks set to lose another key Red Bull ally.

I’ve dusted off my crystal ball for this one. Credit: Getty Images

Hello! I hope those of you who celebrated Christmas at the end of last week had a beautiful time with your families and friends.

It’s been another very quiet week without much Formula 1 news of any real significance. The one exception has been the revelation that Max Verstappen’s long-time race engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase – known by many in the paddock as ‘GP’ – is considering leaving Red Bull. My understanding is that his desire to do so is fuelled by a very significant but personal reason for him to want to spend more time at home. He does not wish for that personal reason to be reported, so I’ll elaborate no further.

It seems he is in talks with multiple other teams, though it is not clear what sort of role GP is looking to land. He has been most heavily linked with Aston Martin, which makes sense given they are looking for another senior leader with Adrian Newey showing no desire to keep his team principal role for the long-term, and instead wants to keep his whole focus on car design. Aston is also a potential destination for Verstappen next year, should he decide to leave Red Bull, and Lambiase’s presence would certainly help them to persuade him to join.

But they are not the only ones interested in securing his services, with Williams also believed to be in talks with Lambiase over a role. That’s another project with bold ambition for the future while the Williams name also carries plenty of weight from past accomplishments, of course. It’s a tough choice for GP to make, but a nice position to be in! He’s well respected for his work in F1, particularly in recent years for his role in Verstappen’s four championships, so it’s no wonder that teams seem to be queueing up to bring him on board.

Beyond that, there’s little other significant news worthy of a round-up. Instead, I’ve dusted off my crystal ball and used it to make some predictions about what we might be able to expect from what is sure to be a dramatic 2026 season both on and off the track 🔮

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QUICK QUIZ QUESTION – While Gianpiero Lambiase is best known for working as race engineer to Max Verstappen, he has also performed the role for several other drivers. How many can you name? The answer is at the bottom of this newsletter.

Much has been made about what the balance of power might look like when cars hit the track in the New Year. Performance, obviously, is going to be a massive factor when it comes to who is going to be winning in 2026. Similarly essential, though, and certainly much less spoken about right now, is reliability.

We’ve got used to F1 cars being pretty much bulletproof in the last couple of seasons. Sure, we’ve had some engine blowouts, oil leaks and what have you, but many of them have been caused by human errors in the assembly process. This year, the engine designs being used had been raced with for a decade and so the teams had worked out every single little bug in the system to the point that they were probably the most reliable power units the sport has ever seen.

But new engines next year means a complete reset on that front. I’m sure we’ll get plenty of reliability failures, particularly in the first half of the season, and that will affect the big teams as well as the smaller ones. Even thought there will be a lot more pre-season testing days than usual, there’s no way all the kinks will be worked out before we go racing in Melbourne at the start of March.

So even if we do have one or two teams dominating the rest in terms of on-track performance, there should be some opportunities presented to the others. In 2025, only McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes won a Grand Prix. I think there will be more different winners next year, with Ferrari surely set to end their drought and, hopefully, at least one of the midfield teams will taste victory too. Aston Martin and Williams are probably the favourites to join the big four on that front, but maybe someone else will spring a surprise too. The more the merrier!

Since 2010, only one driver has failed to defend their title after becoming World champion for the first time: Nico Rosberg. And that only happened because he retired days after beating his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton to the crown at the end of the 2016 season. Other than that, Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton and Max Verstappen have converted their first titles into dynasties.

Can Lando Norris do the same? Well, if the new Mercedes engines are as good as the rumours suggest they will be, then he’s certainly in with a chance. McLaren have probably the strongest technical team in F1 and it would be no surprise at all if they were to come out of the blocks fastest in March. But if they do, I think Oscar Piastri has shown more than enough for us to not just blindly assume that Norris will have it all his own way.

Will McLaren be able to build on their double title success in 2025 given the changing rules heading into the new season? Credit: FIA/DPPI via Getty Images

But extensive changes to the ruleset, more often than not, see the sport’s dominant force toppled and a new team come to the fore. Will it be Mercedes? Quite possibly and, if it is, then I think George Russell more than proved this season that he is capable of mounting a very stern title challenge if his car is quick enough. Is young Kimi Antonelli ready to do the same? He’s still raw but I think the talent is there – he showed it a few times this season, particularly in the early and latter stages of the campaign.

If Ferrari get it right? Based on what happened this year, you’d have to assume Charles Leclerc would be the favourite – even if his team-mate is a seven-time champion. And if we get a wildcard front-runner like Aston Martin? Fernando Alonso wouldn’t be a ‘new’ champion, of course, but it would be a first title for 20 years for the Spaniard, so it’s not far off! In any case, I don’t think there will be any shortage of contenders.

Will this be the year we see the two elder statesmen of the Formula 1 grid say farewell? Alonso’s current contract is certainly up at the end of this year. There is a little less certainty around Hamilton’s situation – my understanding when he signed for Ferrari was that it was a two-year deal with an option for a third, which could be triggered by the Brit himself. That would mean expiry at the end of this 2026 with Hamilton having the option to stay on for another season if he wants, though some reports in Italy suggest he is guaranteed until 2027.

Whatever the case, Hamilton can realistically walk away whenever he wants. And if he has another miserable year to follow on from this one, then it’s tough to imagine him sticking around for more. Lewis Hamilton has nothing to prove. He also turns 41 in January and has already been wondering aloud whether he is still at the peak of his powers. If Ferrari are in the fight next year, he will learn the answer to that question once and for all.

Could a second miserable season with Ferrari prompt Lewis Hamilton to walk away from F1? Credit: Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

For Alonso, the situation is rather different. A successful 2026 is actually more likely to persuade the Spaniard to call time on his lengthy career. If he is in contention for race wins and perhaps the championship, then he will have done his job successfully – get Aston Martin to the front – and can walk away happy. If they aren’t yet where they want to be, then it’s hard to imagine him giving up, even aged 45.

Remember the driver market in 2024? How volatile it was? Get ready for part two…

Of the 22 drivers on the grid in 2026, it’s believed 15 of them are out of contract at the end of next season. That figure does not include Max Verstappen, who has a deal until 2028 but that contract contains levers which would allow him to leave next year if Red Bull do not match the performance requirements as set out in that deal. Rather like Carlos Sainz a couple of years ago, the Dutchman is likely to be something of a cork in the bottle, with many others waiting to see what he decides to do before making commitments of their own. But more on Verstappen below…

As it’s quicker to list the drivers who have deals that go beyond the end of 2026, here it is: Verstappen, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri (both McLaren), Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), Pierre Gasly (Alpine), Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez (both Cadillac). Everyone else will be theoretically free to leave at the end of the season, and all of them will be waiting to see where the chips fall in terms of the new competitive order, and those with the best bargaining positions will be instructing their management teams to do everything they can to secure a seat in the quickest car they can find.

So the more shaken up the competitive order is, the more chopping and changing we’re likely to see. Could half the grid or more end up changing teams? If we do get a retirement or two, and a blockbuster switch from Verstappen, then it’s not exactly out of the question.

I think this will be the one on this list that will catch most people’s eye. Verstappen was never really close to walking away from Red Bull this year, particularly after Christian Horner was ousted and things behind the scenes settled down much more under his replacement Laurent Mekies. But could that all change in 2026?

Certainly, it could. Performance will be a key consideration, of course. Max Verstappen is not the sort of driver who will be happy spending too long outside of contention for race wins and titles. And if Red Bull don’t get things right in their first ever crack at building their own F1 engine, there’s every chance 2026 could be a lean year for him. But it is not the only thing to be considered.

Max Verstappen could lose both of his closest Red Bull allies this winter with race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase possibly following Helmut Marko through the exit door. Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

It will be interesting to see how much of a home Red Bull still feels like next year. One of Verstappen’s closest allies, Helmut Marko, has already left. And another in Lambiase, as above, looks to be on his way out. Will he see it as a sign that it is time for a fresh start of his own? We’ll see. But even though some people might see Verstappen as something of a mercenary, who will jump into the quickest car he can find without a second’s hesitation, I’m not so sure that it is fair to suggest he has such a lack of loyalty.

I had a one-on-one interview with him at the 2024 Abu Dhabi GP and a constant theme throughout our chats, both on and off record, was how much he would love to spend his whole F1 career as a Red Bull driver. Looking back at my notes, he said it would be a “beautiful” story. A very rare one too, in the Formula 1 world. I’m not at all convinced that Verstappen might find it in any way simple to call time on that relationship with Red Bull, even if he does believe it will serve him better in the future. Time will tell.

They’re the newcomers to the sport, building their entire infrastructure basically from scratch. Of course they have been preparing for this for years, but it was only less than a year ago that the 11th team, which started out as an Andretti Global bid to join F1 before morphing into a fully General Motors-branded entry, was given final approval to appear on the 2026 grid. When a gaggle of reporters, including myself, were invited to tour their satellite base at Silverstone in the summer, team principal Graeme Lowdon told us he believed any existing team will be very, very annoyed if they lose out to the newbies in 2026.

That is probably true, but it’s not as though Cadillac are coming into this with a staff full of newbies who’ve never done this before. Their recruitment drive has seen a lot of very talented and experienced people join the project from established teams up and down the grid. Lowdon has been here before, having led the Virgin/Marussia Racing team for many years. Chief technical officer Nick Chester has 25 years of F1 experience under his belt, having started with Arrows in the 1990s before spending two decades at the Enstone team in its various guises, first as Benetton and later Renault. Pat Symonds, who has been in F1 even longer, is consulting for Cadillac. COO Robert White is another long-serving Enstone alum. The list goes on.

Most would probably bet on Cadillac ending their first season in F1 rock bottom of the constructors’ standings, and I suspect the odds of that happening are quite short. But with so much being shaken up next year for even the current teams, and the fact Cadillac were able to lay some of the foundations for their 2026 efforts while not bound by wind tunnel testing time and budget cap rules, I would not be too surprised to see the American outfit do better than some might expect.

Wouldn’t that be music to the ears of experienced driver Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez? Both have been given a second chance in F1, after losing their places on the grid after difficult 2024 seasons at Sauber and Red Bull respectively. It’s a free hit for them, really – if neither of them score a point, it’s to be expected for a new team. And if they exceed expectations, suddenly they might find themselves with some negotiating power once again.

✍ I very much enjoyed this interview, conducted by Teddy Draper, with the former mechanic and translator to five-time Formula 1 world champion Juan Manuel Fangio who had some amazing stories to tell of a fascinating past era of motorsport.

✍ Want to know more about F1 newcomers Audi? This explainer from Julia is a good way to get to know the German carmaker’s motorsport history a little better.

✍ This piece on different flags in motorsport and what they all mean, from Oversteer And Opinions, will be useful for newer fans of Formula 1.

QUICK QUIZ QUESTION ANSWER – Gianpiero Lambiase has worked as race engineer to Max Verstappen and Daniil Kvyat at Red Bull, and before that he was a race engineer at Force India where he worked with Sergio Perez, Paul di Resta and Vitantonio Liuzzi. Before all that, he worked as a performance engineer to Giancarlo Fisichella.

Thanks so much for reading this week’s edition of Pit Lane Chronicle. This newsletter is FREE for all to enjoy. Please do let me know what you think, with any tips, comments and suggestions always welcome. And Happy New Year to you all!

👋 For those of you who don’t yet know me, my name is Daniel Moxon and I’m the FIA-accredited senior Formula 1 correspondent across all titles owned by Reach PLC in the UK. That includes the Daily Mirror, for which I was previously F1 correspondent, the Daily Express and the Daily Star.