Toto Wolff and Mercedes have emerged as surprise bidders for the 24% stake in Alpine that private equity group Otro Capital is selling, directly challenging former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner’s attempt to use the same parcel as a route back into F1. Horner, dismissed last season, has said he has “unfinished business,” and an adviser confirmed his interest earlier this year.

It is unclear whether Wolff would lead his own investor consortium or act on behalf of Mercedes, which has described itself as “a key strategic partner of Alpine” and says it is being kept apprised. Otro values Alpine at £1.5bn-£1.86bn, putting the 24% stake at roughly £360m-£448m; any sale would leave Renault with about 76% and requires Renault’s sign-off; earlier reports said Horner’s plans depended on Renault reducing its holding.

Mercedes AMG HPP already supplies Alpine with power units and gearboxes under an agreement running through at least 2030, so a Wolff- or Mercedes-backed purchase could deepen technical and commercial integration. Rival teams have voiced concern about the competitive implications of shared ownership or multi-team alliances, and several reports say a Mercedes approach would likely complicate or block Horner’s route back.

Alpine and Otro Capital declined to comment; the situation remains unconfirmed and the outcome will shape Alpine’s shareholder structure and wider dynamics in F1.

Mercedes stamped its authority on the 2026 season-opening Australian Grand Prix as George Russell converted pole into victory and the Silver Arrows secured a dominant 1–2 finish, with rookie Kimi Antonelli classified about 2.9 seconds behind. Russell’s win — his sixth career victory — came after Mercedes set the weekend tone with roughly seven-tenths of a second qualifying advantage, and team principal Toto Wolff declared “Mercedes is back.” The result vaulted Russell to the top of the drivers’ standings and handed Antonelli a standout debut haul of points.

At the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, battery depletion and on-grid energy rules reshaped starts and early strategy. Regulations bar the use of stored electrical energy while a car is stationary and until it reaches 50 kph, and on the formation lap several cars arrived on the grid with severely depleted batteries after struggling to manage deployment. The FIA’s revised blue-light start procedure — a blue flash to signal turbo spin-up followed by the near-instant extinguishing of the five starting lights — produced messy, inconsistent getaways; technical packaging amplified the effect, with teams running larger turbos needing more time to spool and losing more performance when MGU-K assistance was unavailable.

Those differences created large speed gaps and forced evasive moves in the midfield: Franco Colapinto nearly rear-ended Liam Lawson, who had been nearly stationary with a power-unit issue. The new power-unit rules and the Overtake feature immediately influenced on-track battles. Charles Leclerc, who started fourth, surged to the lead despite radioing that his battery was “very, very low” and expecting to fall to P8 or P9; telemetry showed his more aggressive, sustained throttle application gave him almost a 20 km/h advantage over George Russell exiting Turn 1. Engineers coached drivers on lift-and-coast technique, battery deployment and the one-second window required to activate Overtake — race engineer Marcus Dudley announced “Overtake enabled” when the gap reached 0.9s — and both Leclerc and Russell said they were still learning to optimize Overtake and battery use. They traded positions in a tight energy-management duel, with Leclerc noting that being second could be “a big advantage” because it allowed Overtake deployment when following.

Energy considerations also dictated pit calls and the race result. A Virtual Safety Car was triggered by a stopped car — reports differed on whether it followed Valtteri Bottas’s stopped Cadillac or Isack Hadjar’s stricken Red Bull — and the pit lane was briefly closed. Mercedes exploited the window to pit for fresh tires while Ferrari kept Leclerc out; Mercedes’ calls, aided by the VSC, recovered track position and produced a one-two finish for George Russell and teammate Kimi Antonelli, with Leclerc third. The race underlined how start procedures, on-grid battery rules, turbo/gearbox packaging and revised straight-line modes can determine outcomes, and teams and analysts warned these factors were likely to push squads to increasingly “weaponize” electrical-energy strategies as the season progressed.

Mercedes’ one-two in Melbourne was driven as much by a superior 2026 power unit and software as by chassis performance, with team data and lap analysis pointing to more efficient hybrid energy deployment and different engine mappings as the decisive edge.

The works squad brought a new Mercedes power unit to the Australian Grand Prix and converted a commanding qualifying advantage—roughly seven to eight-tenths over rivals—into race pace; GPS traces and sector analysis showed Mercedes picking up time on the straights, notably the runs to Turns 6 and 9, and using more frequent lower-gear mappings to combine high corner speed with strong straight-line performance.

Reports also noted the works team had been able to optimize its package during Bahrain testing in ways customer teams were not running, magnifying the on-track gap under the new regulations.

Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion now driving for Ferrari, said he “loved” the new 2026-spec cars after the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, calling them “awesome,” “really fun to drive” and something he “personally loved.” He said the weekend was a positive confirmation that the new cars can deliver exciting racing, praised Ferrari’s cornering performance and highlighted “lots and lots of positives” to carry into the rest of the season. Hamilton also noted that drivers’ views on the new machinery can vary depending on where they were running in the race, a likely reference to criticism from rivals such as Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

Hamilton used his post-race remarks to assess Ferrari’s competitiveness against Mercedes and expressed optimism that his team could close the gap. He said Ferrari were “right in the fight” with Mercedes and that catching them would take work but was “not impossible.” On race day Mercedes produced the quicker car — George Russell won as Mercedes completed a one-two — and Hamilton acknowledged a straight-line speed deficit for Ferrari versus the Mercedes W17 while saying the two marques were largely comparable through the corners.

Hamilton started seventh, ran as high as third and finished fourth, as close as he has been to a podium with Ferrari in 25 attempts; he told Carlo Santi “a couple more laps and I would have had Charles,” though other calculations suggested another five laps would likely have secured third. Ferrari plans upgrades to close the straight-line speed gap, and team figures defended their strategy after a virtual safety car and a pit-stop call that the team calculated cost them about 13 seconds in Melbourne.

Mercedes claimed the race win at the 2026 Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park on Sunday — the first victory of Formula 1’s new technical era — and took an early lead in the championship. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc produced a lightning-fast start and mounted a sustained challenge during the race, while reports noted fans were affected by the absence of a crowd favorite who was deprived of participation before the race began.

Qualifying on Saturday set the tone when George Russell stormed to a dominant pole position, producing a Mercedes front-row lockout and giving the team momentum and a tactical advantage heading into the race. Practice sessions were more mixed: three different drivers topped Practice 1, 2 and 3, underscoring an unpredictable field, and observers said Mercedes may be better adapted to the new regulations while practice variability left room for rivals to close the gap on race day.

Photographic galleries and pictorial recaps captured on-track battles, qualifying drama and paddock activity, and a Supercars morning race opened the program and energized the crowd. The event awarded the inaugural trophies of the 2026 championship, with images emphasizing both the significance of the new technical regulations and a strong spectator turnout as the paddock formally moved into the 2026 season.

Isack Hadjar blamed an RBPT‑Ford power‑unit and battery energy failure for his early retirement from the Australian Grand Prix and publicly urged Red Bull to “do better” on reliability and energy management. He said he could not deploy battery energy during the opening laps under Formula 1’s new power‑unit rules, that the power unit overheated and was emitting smoke from the airbox, and that the engine “sounded terrible” before he stopped on lap 11 or 12.

Hadjar described the situation as an energy‑management and simulation shortcoming rather than a standalone, routine technical fault, saying the team had not replicated the scenario during testing and calling on Milton Keynes to address both technical and strategic gaps under the new rules.

The failure turned a promising weekend into disappointment for the 21‑year‑old French driver, who had qualified third and launched from P3 to briefly challenge polesitter George Russell. After losing deployable battery power he was overtaken by Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap, later passed by Kimi Antonelli while holding off rookie Arvid Lindblad, and ultimately walked back to the Red Bull garage when the car stopped — visibly frustrated. With Max Verstappen out of the race, Hadjar had been Red Bull’s best hope to salvage points; he said he made “zero” mistakes, pointed to his pace as proof he can compete at the front, and warned the team that better energy management and power‑unit reliability are needed if he is to turn strong qualifying into podiums. Some reports described the weekend as his first race for Red Bull, while others placed it in his sophomore season.