Author Archives: PressBox

Red Bull brought what team principal Laurent Mekies called most probably its last significant upgrade package of the 2026 Formula 1 season to the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, as the team shifts most of its resources to next year’s car. Mekies said Red Bull is still chasing its first win of the season and is using the remaining races to keep learning, even as the team’s form has improved in recent rounds.

The Baku package included five updates and was centered on a new floor, with changes also made to the diffuser, sidepods, mirrors and halo. Red Bull also said one of the updated parts was introduced for reliability reasons. Technical director Pierre Wache said the same specification was fitted to both Max Verstappen’s and Isack Hadjar’s RB22s and performed as expected in Thursday practice.

Hadjar returned after missing the previous three races with a wrist injury and said the car felt better than when he last drove it in Hungary. Red Bull said Verstappen and Hadjar would run the same specification for the weekend, while Mekies noted Verstappen’s recent run of five podiums in the last seven Grands Prix and said the team still had work to do to match the fastest cars.

Cadillac has added three senior technical figures to its Formula 1 program as it builds out the engineering and aerodynamics side of the team. Craig Skinner was named chief development engineer after 20 years at Red Bull, Eric Blandin was appointed head of aerodynamics, and Tim Lean became chief engineer for aerodynamics modeling and simulation. Cadillac team principal Marcin Budkowski called the hires a key step in building a stronger technical organization.

Skinner will report to chief technical officer Nick Chester. He previously spent two decades at Red Bull and had been described as a former chief designer there. Blandin has held senior aerodynamics roles at Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin, with one source identifying him as Aston Martin’s former deputy technical chief and another saying he spent more than 11 years at Mercedes. Lean also brings long experience from McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari.

The three are expected to join Cadillac in the coming months after gardening leave. Cadillac said the appointments are part of an effort to accelerate development ahead of its 2027 sophomore campaign, as the Formula 1 expansion team works from a new UK headquarters in Silverstone and builds a base in Fishers, Indiana. The team is also trying to address operational and build-quality issues as it develops its organization.

McLaren’s Thursday practice in Baku got off to a difficult start, with Lando Norris saying the team was “miles off” the pace and that the gap felt like “a little knife in the heart.” Norris finished sixth in Thursday practice, about 1.5 seconds behind Mercedes’ George Russell, while Oscar Piastri was eighth behind Alpine’s Pierre Gasly. Norris described McLaren’s pace as “pretty pants” and said the car was “not very fast” at the moment.

Norris said the car did not feel bad to drive, but the lap time was the main concern, and he said he had “no idea” how McLaren could close the roughly 1.5-second deficit before the next session and qualifying. McLaren had brought upgrades to the MCL40 for the weekend, but Thursday running was disrupted by a crack in one part of the car, described in different reports as either a floorboard issue or a bargeboard issue. The team temporarily repaired it with cable ties or tie wraps so both drivers could keep running, and chief technical officer Rob Marshall said McLaren was still learning how to optimize the new parts.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were set to start from the back of the grid at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after the FIA confirmed a combined 45 places of engine-related penalties for Aston Martin. Alonso received a 25-place penalty and Stroll a 20-place penalty, both of which were above the 15-place threshold that automatically drops a driver to last on the grid in Baku.

Alonso’s penalties came after Aston Martin fitted a fifth internal combustion engine, a fifth turbocharger and a ninth power unit ancillary component to his car. Stroll’s penalty followed the addition of a sixth turbocharger, a seventh energy store, a sixth control electronics unit and an eighth ancillary component. Aston Martin had exceeded its allotted Honda engine components for both cars.

Under Formula 1 regulations, the first breach of a power unit element allocation carries a 10-place grid penalty, with later breaches in the same event carrying five-place penalties that stack. The FIA said the two Aston Martin drivers were expected to line up on the 11th and final row unless other drivers also took multiple penalties and qualified behind them. Aston Martin had scored three points in 2026 before the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, all of them scored by Alonso.