Author Archives: PressBox

Mercedes has identified a fault in its F1 power unit battery as the likely cause of the costly retirements that hit George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and the team is working on a permanent fix. Russell’s Canadian Grand Prix ended while he was leading, while Antonelli retired from second place in Barcelona after a similar failure. Technical director James Allison said the battery was the source of the reliability issue after examining Antonelli’s car.

Allison said the two failures were not identical, but both came from the same broad area of the battery. Mercedes is developing new modules to improve reliability across its cars, and it has already narrowed down most of the risk areas. The team is taking a cautious short-term approach while engineers work toward a lasting solution, but it has not given a timeline for the repair. Mercedes heads into four race weekends in five weeks, starting with Austria next weekend.

The problem has hurt Mercedes’ constructors’ title fight, with team principal Toto Wolff saying after Barcelona that the team could not afford repeated DNFs and would investigate the issue thoroughly. The retirements cost Mercedes potential podium finishes while its cars were running in strong positions. Mercedes did not say whether McLaren’s recent electrical issues were linked to the fault it found, and former driver David Coulthard said reliability problems could worsen as the 2026 season progresses, even as he still viewed Mercedes as having the strongest overall package on the grid.

Lewis Hamilton extended Formula 1’s record for the longest span between a driver’s first and last Grand Prix victories when he won the Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, his 106th career victory. The win came 19 years and 4 days after his first Formula 1 triumph in Canada in 2007 with McLaren, across 381 Grands Prix. Hamilton also became the first driver older than 40 to win a Formula 1 race since Nigel Mansell in 1994, and the first British driver to win for Ferrari in the 21st century.

The Barcelona result ended a year-long drought and marked Hamilton’s first win in a Ferrari after he went without a victory or podium in his first season with the team in 2025. He has looked more competitive in 2026, finishing second in Canada and showing strong pace in Monaco before converting that form into a dominant win in Spain. A virtual safety car helped at the finish, and the report said Ferrari had put him in position to capitalize. His improvement has also been linked to a new race engineer and a revised pre-race routine that emphasizes data analysis over simulator work.

Hamilton said each of his 106 victories has followed its own path and that the Barcelona result showed success is still within reach if he keeps working. He said his physical condition and self-confidence help him compete against younger drivers, pointing to 19-year-old championship leader Kimi Antonelli as an example of Formula 1’s generational contrast. Hamilton also said the previous year was difficult and that he briefly wondered whether he had lost his edge before this victory restored his confidence. After the race, he moved into second place in the drivers’ standings, nine points ahead of George Russell, and trimmed his deficit to Antonelli by 25 points, though he still trailed the championship leader by 41 points. Hamilton said he was not yet focused on matching an eighth world title and said Ferrari’s SF-26 still does not match the performance level of Mercedes’ W17.

Apple TV will make the entire Austrian Grand Prix weekend available free to U.S. viewers with an Apple ID, giving fans access to practice, qualifying and the race itself from June 26 to June 28 at the Red Bull Ring. The race is scheduled for 6 a.m. PT, 9 a.m. ET on Sunday. It is Apple TV’s first free-streaming Formula 1 event and the latest move in Apple and Formula One’s push to grow the sport’s American audience.

Apple secured U.S. Formula 1 rights at the start of the season in a deal reported to be worth $150 million a year after Formula 1 moved entirely away from linear television this season. Apple has promoted the series through Times Square billboards, IMAX theater screenings, free Tubi alt-casts and a shared Canadian Grand Prix telecast with Netflix.

Apple has said its Formula 1 viewership so far has been comparable to or better than last year’s ESPN numbers, though it has not released public figures. ESPN averaged a record 1.32 million viewers last season. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said at the Indy 500 that he had heard viewership was up 25% to 30% and called the broadcast product “awesome,” saying it appears likely to keep improving.

Jacques Villeneuve has called on Ferrari to make Lewis Hamilton its clear priority for 2026, saying the team’s best chance of winning again is to build around the seven-time world champion rather than Charles Leclerc. Speaking on The F1 Show podcast, Villeneuve said Hamilton has settled in at Ferrari, is pushing hard and has the experience and mentality needed to succeed. He said Leclerc has already had enough time to shape the team around himself and argued Ferrari cannot afford to split its focus if it wants to contend for the title.

The pressure on Leclerc has grown as Hamilton’s form has improved. Hamilton won the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, his first victory for Ferrari, after back-to-back second-place finishes in Canada and Monaco. The result ended Hamilton’s nearly two-year winless run and Ferrari’s own drought, while Leclerc has endured a difficult stretch with back-to-back retirements in Monaco and Barcelona, plus a crash in Monaco and another in Barcelona qualifying. Reports on the gap between them vary, with Leclerc said to trail Hamilton by 30 points in one account and 40 in another. Ferrari had already extended Leclerc’s contract before his home race.

Others in the paddock also pointed to Hamilton’s growing influence. Guenther Steiner said Leclerc’s poor run could force him to follow Hamilton’s approach, including technical preferences such as the brakes discussed in Monaco, and suggested Ferrari could improve by paying closer attention to Hamilton’s setup direction. Juan Pablo Montoya said a driver’s comfort with the car can unlock more speed and that the team should adapt the car around the driver. Hamilton said his improved results have come from changes to his race team, race engineer and weekend approach. David Coulthard offered Leclerc some reassurance, saying Hamilton may only remain a Ferrari rival for about two more years, even as the balance inside the team has shifted toward Hamilton.

Nico Hulkenberg’s Barcelona Grand Prix ended in unusual fashion after gravel or a stone thrown up by Liam Lawson’s car at Turn 12 struck the emergency kill switch on Hulkenberg’s Audi and shut the engine down. Hulkenberg said Lawson had run wide while the pair were fighting for ninth place, and that debris from the gravel strike triggered the switch and left the car to coast to a stop. The retirement came on lap 28.

Hulkenberg said the car “totally switched off” and that he had never experienced anything like it in his career. He was able to limp back to the pits, but the car would not restart. Audi later said gravel hit both the fire extinguisher and the ERS kill switch, causing the sudden loss of power. Hulkenberg’s mechanics initially treated it as a routine pit stop and changed his tires before the problem was identified.

The incident denied Hulkenberg what would have been his first points finish of the 2026 season. After the race he remained 19th in the standings for Audi. Lawson said he did not know his mistake had caused Hulkenberg’s retirement and called the situation “so unfortunate.” Audi racing director Allan McNish said the failure was a frustrating end to a strong weekend for Hulkenberg.