Author Archives: PressBox

Williams has confirmed that Alex Albon will remain with the team through the 2027 Formula 1 season, although it did not disclose the full length of the new deal. The extension keeps the Thai-British driver at Williams for a sixth straight year after he joined ahead of the 2022 campaign, and follows a run in which he has become the team’s record-holder for race starts. Albon passed Nigel Mansell for the mark in Barcelona and reached 100 grands prix for Williams in Hungary this year.

Albon said Williams’ transformation since he arrived had been significant and said he remained committed to the team’s long-term project. He said one difficult year in 2026 did not reflect the full picture, and said he was focused on helping Williams move back up the Formula 1 grid. Williams is preparing to mark its 50th anniversary, and the team said keeping Albon was part of its revival plan.

Team principal James Vowles said he was delighted to keep Albon and described him as a leader of Williams’ rebuild. Vowles said the extension reflected both sides’ belief in the direction the team is heading. Williams is ninth in the 2026 standings after finishing fifth in 2025, and Albon has scored points only twice this season as the team has gone five race weekends without scoring.

Gabriel Bortoleto said he will remain with Audi in 2027 and beyond, dismissing speculation that Carlos Sainz could take his seat. The Brazilian said his contract has no early-exit clauses and that Audi views its Formula 1 program as a long-term project, with Mattia Binotto discussing plans through 2030. He said his seat is secure before F1 returns at Zandvoort this weekend.

Bortoleto said next year will be another step in developing Audi’s car and engine package, and pointed to his rookie season as evidence of his form. He finished eighth in Belgium and eighth at Silverstone, Audi’s best results so far this year. Through the first 11 rounds of the 2026 season, he had scored 10 of Audi’s 12 points and was 14th in the drivers’ standings.

Bortoleto also said he would be happy to keep Nico Hulkenberg as his teammate, while Hulkenberg brushed off the speculation as “typical summer F1 noise” and said the team is happy with both drivers. Reports this week suggested Sainz is now likely to stay with Williams after Audi repeatedly ruled out a move.

Lewis Hamilton said Ferrari’s internal harmony was at its highest point and urged the team to make a final push to catch Mercedes as the 2026 Formula 1 title fight resumed after the summer break. Ferrari trail Mercedes by 72 points in the constructors’ standings, Hamilton is 50 points behind Kimi Antonelli in the drivers’ championship, and there are 12 rounds left, starting at Zandvoort. Hamilton said Ferrari has built a solid foundation for the challenge but still needs to channel its passion and improve its performance to end its 18-year title drought.

Hamilton’s first Ferrari season has already marked a clear step forward after the team’s winless 2025, with victories for him in Barcelona and for Charles Leclerc at Silverstone. Hamilton has finished in the points in every round, with one win and five podiums, while Leclerc has one win and four podiums. The teammates are close in their internal battle, with Leclerc leading Hamilton 6-5 in qualifying and Hamilton ahead 6-5 in races.

Ferrari’s recent SF-26 updates have made the team more competitive against Mercedes, and another floor upgrade is due at Zandvoort after issues exposed at the Hungaroring. Ferrari said the new floor should address the drop-off it identified in Hungary, where qualifying and pit-lane mistakes left Hamilton fifth despite strong pace. Hamilton said he needs to cut down on costly errors after penalties at Silverstone, Spa and Hungary, while Ferrari also expects a second engine upgrade and says it must keep developing in a tight battle with McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes. Ferrari’s low point came at the Austrian Grand Prix, where both cars struggled with tire degradation and finished fifth and eighth after starting second and third, and team principal Fred Vasseur said the team lacked pace there.

Formula 1 returns from its summer break this weekend at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix’s farewell to the calendar, with the 12th round of the 2026 season set to be the circuit’s final race in the championship. The event returned in 2021 after a 36-year absence and first ran as a Formula 1 race in 1952. Organizers said they could not make it financially viable, even with sell-out crowds that have often backed home favorite Max Verstappen, and the weekend is expected to be his final home Dutch Grand Prix.

Mercedes’ 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli leads the drivers’ standings by 50 points over Lewis Hamilton, with six wins from the season’s 11 races and more than 300 points still available over the remaining 12 rounds. Lando Norris arrives in form after winning in Hungary before the break, where Verstappen finished second and Antonelli was third.

McLaren brings the completed version of its upgrade package to Zandvoort after Norris’s Budapest victory. Aston Martin will introduce Honda’s updated power unit after its chassis gains in Hungary and is aiming for another step forward with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Cadillac also has a new team principal, appointing Marcin Budkowski to replace Graeme Lowdon.

Zandvoort’s farewell weekend will also host its first Sprint event. Track action begins Friday, Aug. 21, with practice at 11:30 a.m. local time and Sprint Qualifying at 3:30 p.m., followed by the 24-lap Sprint on Saturday at 11 a.m., qualifying at 3 p.m. and the 72-lap race on Sunday at 3 p.m. Rain is possible across all three days, with a 60% chance on Friday and shower chances easing later in the weekend.

Honda’s rebuilt Formula 1 project is taking shape around a very different personnel model from its Red Bull-era program, and the change left Aston Martin unaware until November 2025 how much the operation had been reshaped. Honda trackside manager Shintaro Orihara said the company now rotates staff between road-car work and F1, which brought in many newer employees from other projects and left the team short of Grand Prix-specific experience early in 2026. Orihara said Honda still had some staff with Red Bull-era F1 background and uses F1 as a way to develop talent for the wider organization.

After difficult winter testing, Honda brought back several employees from its Red Bull program to add expertise, and Orihara said the team has made strong progress since then. Honda says it is now better placed to improve its power unit and energy management, with its first ADUO upgrade of the year due at Zandvoort. The “spec two” engine is set to debut at the Dutch Grand Prix, and early testing data suggests it could give Aston Martin a major lift in the second half of the season. Honda leaders also believe the updated engine will help Adrian Newey’s AMR26 chassis, though they said more work is still needed to compete at the front.

Orihara said Honda’s goal is to return to Formula 1’s leading power-unit suppliers by late 2027 or early 2028, with further combustion-engine improvements planned for 2027. He said the company will keep focusing on combustion performance and wants bigger gains next year, while also treating chassis integration as another major priority. Orihara warned that the 2027 regulations, including slightly different fuel-flow rules, could bring back reliability problems similar to those Honda faced earlier this year.