Red Bull’s significant upgrade package for the Austrian Grand Prix is unlikely to be enough on its own to close the performance gap to Mercedes and Ferrari, team principal Laurent Mekies said, as the team continues to chase roughly four tenths of a second per lap. Mekies pointed to Ferrari’s Barcelona upgrade as an example of how much performance can still be unlocked through development in Formula 1’s 2026 rules era.

Mekies said Red Bull has been making gradual progress since Japan and believes Mercedes’ early-season advantage is starting to fade, but he said the team still needs further steps after Austria. He said the package will be judged on the lap time it produces on track, not on expectations, and rejected the idea that Red Bull is in no man’s land, saying it is still competing with the top four teams. Red Bull arrives at the Red Bull Ring still dealing with balance and grip issues and is described as having the fourth-best car under the current rules.

The Austria upgrade will be Red Bull’s second major update of the season after Miami, when it introduced a new sidepod design and a rotary rear wing concept. The team is focused on chassis-side gains because it did not receive power-unit upgrade tokens, and the Austrian package may also help reduce weight, with Red Bull still believed to be above the 768kg minimum. In Spain, Mekies said the team’s best realistic result before late retirements would have been to beat one Ferrari and one McLaren, while Max Verstappen finished fourth after the race changed late on.

Carlos Sainz is weighing his future at Williams after the team’s difficult start to the 2026 F1 season, with delayed winter development and an overweight car leaving it short of pace. Team principal James Vowles believes Williams can become competitive with F1’s top teams by 2028, and Sainz says that target is realistic, but he is still deciding whether he wants to wait that long to win again.

Speaking in Monaco, Sainz said he remains committed to helping Williams recover, though podium contention this year looks unlikely. He said he will have to make a decision about his future later this season. Former F1 winner David Coulthard said Sainz is likely assessing his options as Williams goes through its slump, with market speculation also continuing around both of the team’s drivers.

Ralf Schumacher said Max Verstappen rejected a Red Bull offer that would have kept him with the team through the end of the 2032 F1 season. Schumacher said Verstappen told Red Bull he is already under contract through 2028 and wanted to “wait and see” before agreeing to a longer extension. He said the meeting took place in Austria and suggested Verstappen’s hesitation reflected uncertainty about Red Bull’s ability to keep producing a championship-winning car. Schumacher also said Oscar Piastri could become relevant to Red Bull’s plans.

Verstappen’s future is also tied to a release clause in his current deal, which his agent Raymond Vermeulen confirmed exists. Reports differ on the trigger: one says it could activate if Verstappen is outside the top two at the summer break, while another says it would run from August to October with the same top-two condition. One report said Verstappen is seventh in the standings and 60 points behind second place with four races left before the deadline, and he has one podium in the first seven rounds of 2026, a third place in Canada. Mercedes also made an approach, but Verstappen rejected it immediately because the offer was not considered strong enough.

Vermeulen said Verstappen and Red Bull remain loyal to each other for now and that a decision could come before the summer break. He said the aim is to reach clarity soon, while reports also say Verstappen has declined to publicly commit to Red Bull for 2027. Red Bull is reported to be weighing ways to keep him, including a low double-digit-million payment to remove the exit clause and, in another rumor, a possible controlling stake in Racing Bulls. That ownership idea has been linked to FIA scrutiny of dual-ownership rules, though Joe Saward described it as unlikely. Saward said he expects Verstappen to stay with Red Bull at least through 2027, with engineer Gianpiero Lambiase expected to move to McLaren around that time.

Aston Martin endured a miserable weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, with both cars retiring after a race that underlined the team’s poor pace and reliability. The team qualified on the back row and was more than three seconds off the pace in Q1. Lance Stroll retired on lap 5 after losing third and fourth gears, and the team told him to stop to avoid further gearbox damage. Fernando Alonso started from the pit lane after adding power unit elements to his pool, ran a longer stint, battled Cadillac’s Sergio Pérez, then retired after a battery failure and stopped on the grass after his pit stop.

Chief trackside officer Mike Krack apologized directly to fans after the double DNF, saying he was sorry for supporters in green shirts and disappointed the team could not give them anything to celebrate. He said Aston Martin had expected a difficult event, but not one as severe as Barcelona, and said the team lacked both reliability and performance. Krack added that the lack of progress was weighing on everyone and that morale was hard to keep up while rivals continued to improve.

Aston Martin is now relying on a major upgrade package that is expected around the Belgian Grand Prix in mid-July, or later in the season around the summer break. The team chose to hold back smaller updates in favor of the larger rollout, with changes expected on both the chassis and power unit side. Alonso said the team needed to stay united and keep hoping for gains in the second half of the season, while noting that the upgrades still have to prove they can make the car faster. Aston Martin remained in Barcelona this week for a Pirelli tire test, with reserve driver Jak Crawford taking part alongside Ferrari and Cadillac.

Ferrari introduced a major eight-component aerodynamic upgrade package to its SF-26 at the Barcelona Grand Prix aimed at boosting performance and closing the gap to Mercedes. The package was the largest of any team at the weekend and represented a broad aerodynamic revision rather than a single targeted tweak.

The upgrades centered on an evolved front wing and a redesigned nose with a raised lower surface, and included a revised footplate with different vane placement plus a new dive plane on the endplate. Ferrari also revised the floor, diffuser and sidepods as part of the set. The team said the changes were intended to improve aerodynamic load distribution, cut turbulence over the front tyres, increase downforce and make the car easier to balance by managing airflow, reducing wake and directing cleaner flow to the rear.

Ferrari introduced the package at Barcelona after an encouraging performance in Monaco and as a follow-up to a previous development step at the Miami Grand Prix in early May, which had not stopped Mercedes maintaining an early-season advantage. Barcelona was treated as an important development benchmark because its mix of low, medium and high-speed corners and the weekend’s three practice sessions on a permanent circuit allowed teams to compare new parts. Several other teams also brought updates, including Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Williams, Racing Bulls, Haas and Cadillac. Lewis Hamilton said, “Ferrari’s innovation has been encouraging.”

Formula 1 has appointed Fever as its new ticketing operator in a five-year partnership beginning in 2027, giving Fever responsibility for a revamped global ticketing platform designed to modernize how fans search for, buy and manage tickets. The new system will launch with the 2027 season and run through 2031 on Formula 1’s website and digital channels.

F1 said the platform will cover general admission tickets, venue-specific hospitality and the series-wide Paddock Club. Chief commercial officer Emily Prazer said the deal is intended to make the consumer journey more seamless and improve the fan experience, and F1 said the overhaul reflects a renewed focus on digital ticketing infrastructure as its global audience continues to grow. F1 also said only a small portion of its supporters will ever attend races in person.

The move ends Platinium Group’s run as F1’s ticketing operator after more than a decade and marks the first major ticketing operator change for the series in more than ten years. Fever said the agreement expands its presence in racing and builds on existing work with Formula 1, including its involvement at the Spanish Grand Prix and a separate agreement tied to Ifema Madrid through 2035. Fever also works with E1, SailGP and LIV Golf.

Formula 1 said it remained on track to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030 after cutting its carbon footprint 35% from its 2018 baseline. The latest verified sustainability report put total emissions at 148,805 tCO2e in 2025, down from 168,720 in 2024 and 228,793 in 2018. The figures cover F1 operations, team factories, race operations and travel.

The sport said the gains came from a mix of changes across freight, logistics, broadcasting, race operations and energy use at factories and facilities. Emissions at team factories were down 64% from 2018, logistics emissions fell 29%, and event-operations emissions dropped 6% even as the calendar expanded to 24 races. F1 said travel-related emissions declined by more than 21,000 tCO2e, and emissions from factories, facilities and offices fell by more than 37,000 tCO2e after teams moved to renewable energy. Renewable power has now been used at all European races for paddock operations, and the 2026 cars are running on fully sustainable fuel while using roughly one-third less fuel per race.

F1 also said its sustainability push has included greater use of sustainable aviation fuel, the first deployment of sustainable maritime fuel, reduced freight and more remote operations. CEO Stefano Domenicali said the results reflected collective action across the sport, and head of ESG Ellen Jones said the Future Race Operations Program and calendar rationalization were key to further cuts. F1 expects more reductions from regional hubs, calendar changes beginning in 2026 and a plan to move half of broadcast-related freight out of air transport by 2030, with more than half of current broadcast and related freight expected to shift off air transport by then. The championship said its net-zero target still depends on at least a 50% absolute emissions cut from 2018 levels, with remaining unavoidable emissions to be offset.

Mercedes has formally sought a Right of Review from the FIA over George Russell’s Monaco Grand Prix penalty, arguing that new evidence from the pit-lane measurement error and the later reversal of Pierre Gasly’s sanction could affect Russell’s result and championship points. Russell was penalized for pit-lane speeding, then received a drive-through penalty after the original punishment was not served correctly, a sequence that dropped him out of the points and ended his race in 12th place. Mercedes says it is pursuing the case for Russell’s benefit, even though team principal Toto Wolff said the team does not expect it to succeed.

The appeal centers on the same Monaco pit-lane measurement issue that led Alpine to overturn Gasly’s penalties. Stewards acknowledged the pit lane had been measured too short, with one account saying it was 77 meters short, and the error affected five drivers in total. Gasly’s penalties were rescinded and his result was restored to third, his first podium since November 2024. Mercedes is arguing that the Gasly ruling provides grounds to revisit Russell’s case, though stewards must first decide whether the evidence is genuinely new, relevant and significant. The FIA has confirmed the review process has begun, but Mercedes still has filings to complete before the case can move forward.

Wolff said Mercedes wanted clarity and a seat at the table when such decisions are made, but also warned that reopening a penalty already served during the race would be difficult under the sporting regulations. He said the team had missed the 96-hour appeal window and believed the matter could open a can of worms if it created a broader precedent. Red Bull and McLaren have also signaled appeals or possible appeals over the Gasly ruling, and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri said he was mind-blown that only Gasly’s penalty had been overturned. Red Bull said it wanted clarity on how in-race penalties that are not appealable should be handled, turning the Monaco dispute into a wider debate over fairness and race governance.