The 2026 Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, originally scheduled to be held from April 17-19 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, has been cancelled. The decision was announced on March 14, 2026, due to the outbreak of the 2026 Iran war, with safety concerns for drivers and staff cited as the reason for the cancellation. McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was the defending champion of the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, securing his third win of that season at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

Ferrari downplayed suggestions that F1’s enforced five-week April break prompted an ad hoc or accelerated development push, saying the SF-26 upgrades follow a long-planned, evidence-driven path rather than a reaction to the hiatus. Chassis technical director Loic Serra told Motorsport.com, “development is not happening in one week or one month,” and said “missing a race or two does not alter what teams learn in the factory,” describing the pause as a limited disruption that did not justify radical or experimental changes.

The team said SF-26 development began in early 2025, with more than a year of virtual work followed by on-track testing, and it expects to bring a substantial upgrade package to the Miami Grand Prix on May 3. Ferrari confirmed it trialed items such as the “Macarena” wing and halo-base winglets, and said further development will be limited in the short term, with small incremental parts more likely to appear at races than wholesale package swaps.

The break followed the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix, reports linked the cancellations to conflict in the Middle East and, in one account, the Iran war. Other teams used the downtime to rush aerodynamic and mechanical parts for Miami and to prepare responses to incoming 2026 regulation changes. Serra expressed skepticism that rivals could or would stage rapid, consecutive upgrades for Miami and Montreal, citing the non-linear nature of development and cost constraints, and he questioned the value of bringing parts only to replace them at the next event. Ferrari presented its program as deliberate, factory-led and continuity-driven rather than driven by the brief calendar interruption.

Incheon has advanced a bid to return to the Formula 1 calendar, proposing a 4.96-kilometer street circuit routed through Songdo Moonlight Festival Park. Mayor Yoo Jeong-bok is leading the push and has proposed a five-year hosting stint. Early plans call for the circuit to use existing roads in Yeonsu-gu, a new pit building and temporary grandstands for up to 120,000 spectators, and to take advantage of proximity to Incheon International Airport and Subway Line 1. City officials began promoting the idea in April 2024 and have targeted 2028 for a race, including a request to stage a double race that year.

A feasibility study led by the Korea Industrial Development Institute in partnership with German circuit designer Tilke, which began in June 2025, confirmed the site’s potential. The study estimated tourism revenue of roughly 580 billion to 590 billion won and projected creation of about 4,800 to 5,000 jobs. Officials put the project cost at about KRW1.04 trillion, with an estimated funding split of KRW237.1 billion from government and city coffers and KRW802.5 billion from private investors. Mayor Yoo said the Grand Prix could “transform Incheon from a transit hub into a global destination.”

Organizers still need backing from local and national governments, a promoter to win a tender and formal approval from Formula 1. They must satisfy technical, financial and political requirements and plan to identify private partners by the end of the year. Political support is divided and looming local elections add uncertainty, and planners say they must demonstrate long-term financial viability to avoid a repeat of the previous Korean Grand Prix at Yeongam, which ran from 2010 to 2013 before falling off the calendar amid cost concerns and waning local interest. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has described South Korea as an “untapped, social-media-connected market.”

Cadillac F1 Team announced a targeted FP1 program that will give Colton Herta four Free Practice 1 appearances during the 2026 season as part of his role as the team’s designated rookie and Test Driver. His first outing in current F1 machinery is scheduled for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix on June 12, with three further FP1 appearances to be confirmed. Cadillac said the sessions will satisfy the mandatory rookie quota and described the initiative as balancing on-track exposure with integration into the team environment, a point reinforced by CEO Dan Towriss and team principal Graeme Lowdon.

Lowdon pointed to Herta’s NTT IndyCar Series record and his strong start to Formula 2 as the rationale for the FP1 opportunities, and Towriss said the runs will aid Herta’s development both on and off track and help him learn Grand Prix operations. Herta, 26, said he “can’t wait to get behind the wheel,” that he was eager to learn from every appearance, and that he hopes to support the team and teammates “Checo and Valtteri.” Cadillac has already completed a seat fitting with Herta and run him in simulators at its Charlotte headquarters as part of his preparation.

Herta is combining the FP1 program with a rookie Formula 2 campaign after switching from IndyCar, where he is a nine-time race winner and finished runner-up in the 2024 championship. He races for Hitech in F2, placed seventh in the Australia feature on his series debut and sat 10th in the F2 Drivers’ Championship after the opening weekend as the series heads to Round 2 in Miami. Cadillac said the FP1 outings will accelerate Herta’s acclimatization to Formula 1 race weekends while formalizing a pathway for his development within the Silverstone-based outfit.

Racing Bulls used an unexpected five-week break to push two upgrades into back-to-back introductions, shifting a planned Bahrain package to Miami and following it with a larger Montreal package two weeks later. Cancellations of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix and F1’s enforced pause created the gap, and team principal Alan Permane said it was a logistical compromise that could not carry every element forward at once; the Miami update was largely superseded by the larger Montreal package.

The pause unlocked unplanned engineering and assembly opportunities. Freight returning from Japan allowed chassis work and full-car assembly at Faenza and let the design office review components earlier than planned. Racing Bulls embedded powertrain engineers with designers to better optimize the in-house Red Bull–Ford unit, and the team will tweak power-unit operations ahead of Miami to maximize the benefit of the rapid hardware changes. Permane said the approach re-linked design and trackside operations and gave some race staff time off while cars were reassembled and checked.

Racing Bulls arrived at the break having scored points in Melbourne, Shanghai and Suzuka, including points in both the Shanghai sprint and main race, and the team expects the twin updates to help it move toward the top of the midfield. Sources describe the new Red Bull–Ford power unit as still in its infancy but promising, and the team acknowledges it still needs more raw speed and downforce under compressed development cycles that have created trade-offs around battery use and corner-entry balance. The team will prioritize efficient, targeted upgrades, adaptability and reliability to exploit the North American and Canadian rounds. Drivers Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad worked on individual programs during the break, and team officials said the pairing is working well. The FIA and teams were also discussing tweaks ahead of Miami aimed at flattening qualifying and reducing closing speeds.

Red Bull announced a technical reorganization as it confronts a poor start to the 2026 season and a string of senior departures. High-profile moves include Gianpiero “GP” Lambiase, who has agreed to join McLaren in 2028; the recent exits of Rob Marshall and Will Courtenay to McLaren; and earlier departures of Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley and, in 2025, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko. Sky Sports F1 pundits warned of a widening “brain drain” and Karun Chandhok urged technical chief Laurent Mekies and Red Bull’s Austrian ownership to act, suggesting the recruitment of a marquee figure, potentially from Mercedes, to help retain and attract talent.

Red Bull promoted Ben Waterhouse to chief performance and design engineer, reporting to technical director Pierre Wache. Reports conflict on timing, with some saying the change is immediate and others saying it takes effect on July 1. The team approved internal promotions and external hires to manage succession and preserve performance. Andrea Landi will join Red Bull on July 1 as head of performance, joining from Racing Bulls and having previously held senior vehicle-performance roles at Ferrari, and he will report to Waterhouse. The team described the moves as an “evolution” intended to tighten integration between design and vehicle performance and accelerate development.

On the track, Red Bull sits sixth in the Constructors’ Championship with 16 points after three rounds, 119 points behind leaders Mercedes. Both drivers have complained about handling and balance of the R22. Max Verstappen has 12 points, with a season-best finish of sixth in Australia, and Isack Hadjar has four. Red Bull also introduced its first in-house engine this season. With the Miami Grand Prix due May 1-3, the team faces immediate pressure to translate the technical changes into improved competitiveness.

Niels Wittich, a former Formula 1 race director, publicly defended Michael Masi’s handling of the controversial safety-car finish at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, saying “Michael didn’t do that much wrong” and calling Masi a “scapegoat”. Wittich said Masi was following a collective mandate from teams, the FIA and Formula 1 to try to finish races under green flags. He said the failure of FIA leadership to back Masi left him exposed to public abuse and death threats and ultimately to removal from his role, which Wittich called unacceptable.

Wittich recounted the key late-race sequence: Lewis Hamilton led by more than 11 seconds when Nicholas Latifi crashed with six laps remaining, Max Verstappen pitted for new soft tires while Hamilton stayed out on used hards, and on lap 57 of 58 Masi allowed the five lapped cars between Verstappen and Hamilton to unlap themselves and immediately instructed the safety car to pit. That move produced a final-lap, winner-takes-all restart that enabled Verstappen to pass Hamilton and clinch the championship. Wittich acknowledged the sequence conflicted with the strict letter of Article 48.12 but said the regulations left discretionary room and that allowing only those five cars to unlap themselves was within Masi’s authority under the circumstances. He dismissed a red flag as an obvious alternative and said focusing solely on Abu Dhabi ignored that the 2021 title was contested over 22 races.

The controversy prompted an FIA inquiry that attributed the outcome to “human error,” after which Masi was stood down and later removed from his FIA role. Masi left the FIA in July 2022 and later worked for Motorsport New Zealand and the New Zealand Championship. Wittich, who stepped down as an F1 race director toward the end of the 2024 season, criticized the FIA for failing to defend its employee and contrasted the response with past backing under Charlie Whiting and Max Mosley, saying the handling of Masi has reignited debate over governance and decision-making in the sport.

Earlier this week the FIA, Formula 1 and the 11 teams agreed to push changes to the 2026 power‑unit, battery and energy‑management regulations ahead of the Miami Grand Prix to address safety, performance and qualifying issues. The decision followed a high-speed crash in Japan that intensified safety concerns after Haas driver Oliver Bearman was involved. A high-level meeting on Monday was followed by an electronic vote and an F1 Commission decision. F1 chief Stefano Domenicali and Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane supported the effort; they said tweaks could be introduced at Miami, but officials stressed changes will be iterative rather than a single overhaul.

Teams and regulators blamed the problems on the new 2026 package, which shifts power‑unit output toward a near 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine (ICE) and a much larger hybrid element, introduces lift-and-coast energy management and active aerodynamics, and mandates advanced sustainable fuels. Those measures increased overtaking but forced drivers to back off in the fastest corners to recharge batteries several times per lap, diluting qualifying and creating dangerous speed differentials. Permane highlighted excessive harvesting and “super-clipping” that left cars running out of battery on straights. Teams also warned that the Sprint format and the Monaco schedule leave little opportunity to trial complex fixes.

Proposals under consideration include raising the super-clipping charge rate from 250 kW to 350 kW, cutting peak electrical deployment from about 350 kW to near 200 kW, and reducing the battery’s permitted energy store. A more extreme option, supported by Red Bull, would increase ICE fuel flow. Regulators and teams acknowledged that battery- and deployment-focused fixes would mitigate symptoms but would not fully eliminate the yo-yo pass-and-repass effect; only a meaningful increase in ICE power would address the root cause, but that carries short-term technical, competitive and logistical complications and is therefore unlikely this season. Permane and FIA single-seater director Nikolas Tombazis signaled a possible staged rollout across races, with simpler measures likely at Miami and more extensive testing planned in Montreal and Barcelona.

Helmut Marko escalated a public row over Formula 1’s 2026 regulations, demanding immediate changes and telling Kleine Zeitung the rules were too complicated and that software and battery systems have an outsized influence on race outcomes. He warned drivers were increasingly at the mercy of batteries and software, described instances where cars overrode driver commands and triggered accidental overtakes, said qualifying had been diluted because cars slowed on straights to harvest energy, described a negative mood among drivers and urged the FIA to reduce the battery’s share of performance and refocus the sport on combustion-engine driving skill.

At Silverstone Nigel Mansell said he “echoes and supports the drivers 100%” and argued the new power unit split and related energy-management rules forced drivers to coast into corners and ease off the throttle to preserve battery life, so the cars were “not actually racing at times.” Mansell called sprint-style competition a “data-entry” exercise, warned the situation risked alienating fans and placed the FIA under “immense pressure” to amend the underlying math, and he urged emergency technical meetings and “more than half-measures” to restore proper on-track racing.

Supporters defended the overhaul’s aims and said execution problems could be fixed. Nico Rosberg told Bloomberg the sport should prioritize racing and technology that matter to society and described the 2026 power unit, roughly a 50:50 split between internal-combustion and electric power with lighter cars, active aerodynamics, new deployment tools and CO2-neutral fuels, as “probably one of the most efficient.” He acknowledged practical execution problems, including battery cutoffs that forced downshifts on straights and produced awkward on-track visuals, but said those issues were secondary if the season produced close intra-team and inter-team battles and singled out Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren as teams that could deliver competitive racing.

Driver reactions were mixed. Max Verstappen called the rules “anti-racing” and warned they could push him to quit. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton said they were positively surprised and that the new cars were easier to follow, and George Russell described the on-track feel as “more like go-kart racing.” Carlos Sainz warned the rules reduced driver control and Pierre Gasly cautioned they harmed qualifying performance. At Suzuka Lando Norris said an unwanted battery deployment through 130R forced him to lift and cost him an overtake on Lewis Hamilton. Nico Hülkenberg and Franco Colapinto said the racing looked entertaining on television but still needed technical and sporting improvements. Rosberg pointed to 19-year-old Kimi Antonelli leading the championship after three races and to strong fan enthusiasm he observed as signs the new era could produce a compelling sporting narrative.