Lewis Hamilton has urged the FIA and Formula 1 to act on what he called a “ridiculous” cost barrier that is making grassroots motorsport harder for young drivers to enter. He said karting and other entry-level steps have become so expensive that the sport is moving in the wrong direction and is shutting out children from lower- and middle-income families. The issue has become a structural problem, Hamilton said, with talent development increasingly shaped by who can afford the fees rather than who has the speed.

The scale of the expense runs from about £130,000 for an eight-year-old karting program to roughly £2 million to £2.3 million in Formula 2, and George Russell said aspiring drivers may now need to be millionaires to have a realistic shot at Formula 1. Russell said his family spent about £1 million over 12 years on his racing before Mercedes funded his progress through GP3 and Formula 2. The article also cited Lance Stroll and Lando Norris as drivers who benefited from substantial family wealth, while saying Fernando Alonso, Hamilton and Charles Leclerc came through with more external support or less privileged backgrounds.

The financial burden has already forced some drivers to rethink their paths. Former Williams Academy driver Zak O’Sullivan said funding problems ended his 2024 Formula 2 campaign early, even after wins in Monaco and Belgium, and he said Formula 1 is no longer a realistic target for him. He now races in Japan’s Super Formula series. Max Verstappen said karting costs are rising quickly and suggested simulators, Formula 4 and GT racing could provide lower-cost ways to spot talent, while Haas driver Esteban Ocon said he would not be able to restart his career under today’s conditions. The FIA’s three-year Global Karting Plan was described as a starting step, not a full solution, as 16-year-old Maisy Creed, the first female PF International X30 junior champion, works to cut karting costs and seeks sponsorship for a move into F1 Academy.

Pirelli will remain Formula 1’s exclusive tyre supplier through the end of the 2028 season after a one-year extension to its existing contract. Reports differ on whether Pirelli or the FIA/Formula One Group exercised the one-year option built into the 2023 agreement that had been due to run to the end of 2027. The extension also preserves Pirelli’s exclusive supply role for the FIA single-seater ladder—Formula 2, Formula 3 and F1 Academy—and extends the uninterrupted partnership that began in 2011 to an 18-year run through 2028.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem and F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said the renewal provides stability and reflects Pirelli’s technical performance, innovation and safety priorities. Pirelli Executive Vice Chairman Marco Tronchetti Provera said the deal is important to keep F1 as a laboratory for tyre research and development. The FIA and the Formula One Group framed the agreement as reinforcing their commercial and technical partnership with Pirelli.

The extension gives teams and organisers continuity as they adapt to the 2026 regulation overhaul; Pirelli developed its latest compounds for those rules, which included a slight tyre-width reduction drivers have had to adjust to. At the time of the announcement, Pirelli’s wet tyres had not yet been used in competition in 2026.

Pirelli first returned as F1’s sole supplier in 2011, has supplied Grand Prix racing as far back as 1950, and has supplied 500 Grands Prix; the company reported tyres covering 334,942 kilometres over a full race distance. The announcement was presented as a business decision to secure supply continuity and recognise Pirelli’s ongoing technical contributions to the sport.