Formula 1’s competitive order was shaken up in 2026 with the roll out of sweeping new regulations across the chassis, aerodynamics and power units. Mercedes came out on top, with it now leading the constructors’ standings and Kimi Antonelli is on top in the drivers’ championship.
But the team hasn’t been bulletproof this year, and strong performances from drivers up and down the grid have shown that there’s still a lot at stake in F1 2026. Here, we look back on some of the best drives of the year so far, which show that a great driver can still make a difference in F1 2026.
Lewis Hamilton at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix
The auguries for Ferrari success in Barcelona were not great from FP1 onwards – a session Lewis Hamilton missed, on account of having to give his car to Dino Beganovic for one of the seasonal ‘rookie runs’, and in which Charles Leclerc was third fastest, albeit half a second off the pacesetting Mercedes of George Russell. All this on a weekend in which Ferrari added yet another upgrade package.
Hamilton was then over a second off the absolute pace in a disappointing FP2, complaining volubly about terrible tyre degradation. It’s becoming evident in 2026 that, owing to the subtleties of operating the new power units, missing a session is more disadvantageous than it used to be, even at tracks such as this one, which a veteran of Hamilton’s calibre could lap blindfolded.
Only after what he described as a “reset” between FP3 and qualifying – where he left the paddock entirely – did Hamilton find his groove, missing pole position by a matter of milliseconds after overcommitting into Turn 1. A precise feel for modulating brake input has long been a Hamilton core skill, and it so happened that the SF-26’s strengths aligned with his through the medium-speed corners that predominate at this track.
In the race, Ferrari wrongfooted Mercedes by starting Hamilton on soft-compound Pirellis of which only used sets were available. Though this didn’t have the desired effect of enabling Lewis to snatch the lead at the start and establish track position, he managed what was clearly a three-stop strategy perfectly.
Mercedes, meanwhile, bent its planned two-stopper out of shape by pitting Russell to cover the potential undercut when Hamilton stopped relatively early. But as Russell and team-mate Antonelli began to fight one another as the race wore on, while the Merc pitwall continued to view the McLaren of Lando Norris as the main threat, Hamilton executed his middle stints perfectly to set himself up for victory.
A timely virtual safety car enabled Hamilton to pit cheaply for his final set of hards. Earlier stops for the Mercedes duo had left him running in the lead and he was able to stop and retain it, whereas in green-flag conditions he would probably have emerged in fourth place behind Russell, Antonelli and Norris. But even then he would have enjoyed a tyre-life offset and he had the pace to win anyhow.
Lewis has broken many records in his life and his first grand prix victory for Ferrari (to add to his sprint win in China last year) set a new one: the oldest driver to win a GP since Jack Brabham in 1970. He may just break that record again before he retires…
– Stuart Codling
Kimi Antonelli at the Monaco Grand Prix
If there were any doubts about Antonelli’s ability to cope with pressure or his championship credentials, the Italian’s performance around the famous streets in June surely banished them.
Firstly, qualifying. Mercedes looked vulnerable earlier in the weekend on such a tight circuit where handling and downforce tend to trump power – or, this season, clever electrical power management. Local hero Leclerc, thrice a Monaco polesitter and driving a Ferrari believed to suit the circuit, topped Q1. Four-time world champion Max Verstappen topped Q2 for Red Bull.
But Antonelli pulled out a Q3 lap to pip Verstappen to pole, five spots and nearly 0.4 seconds faster than team-mate and title rival Russell.
Come the race, Antonelli was masterful, seemed impervious to pressure and appeared to simply enjoy throwing his W17 around the principality. Yes, Verstappen’s Red Bull failed at the start, but Antonelli still had seven-time world champion Hamilton chasing him.
Antonelli held the lead from the off – defying his poor getaways earlier in the campaign – and spent most of the race driving away from the field. He was almost half a minute clear and had lapped Russell, mired in traffic and in the midst of a penalty-riddle run, when Lance Stroll crashed and brought out the safety car, which then led to a stoppage after Leclerc shunted too.
Antonelli thus lost his enormous lead and faced another standing start. It would have been a travesty had that been his downfall, but it didn’t happen. He simply took off again and pulled away, setting a fastest lap on the 76th tour that was 1.2s quicker than anyone else managed all afternoon. Class.
It might be a while before Antonelli takes a better win in F1. Then again, it might not…
– Kevin Turner
Max Verstappen at the Austrian Grand Prix
It’s strange seeing the best driver in the world sit sixth in the championship, but that is the situation presented to Verstappen in the 2026 campaign due to his frustrating RB22. The Red Bull started the year with a weight problem and, as the season has progressed, other issues have emerged – like an extremely narrow operating window.
That has slumped it to fourth in the constructors’ standings, but it is taking nothing away from Verstappen’s capabilities because on the rare occasion the RB22 has found that good operating window, the four-time world champion has been on hand to deliver.
Montreal, for example, was his first podium of the season and he’s also achieved a top three finish in the last two: Spa and Budapest. But his second of four podiums in 2026, Austria round eight, was arguably his most impressive because it so easily could have been a record-extending sixth victory for him at the Red Bull Ring.
Things obviously didn’t start particularly well as a crash late in Q3 – caused by a rear wing issue – demoted him from third to fifth on the starting grid, but Verstappen had recovered with a quick double overtake on Antonelli and Leclerc during lap two.
Old title foe Hamilton was next in his sight and after two near-identical wheel-to-wheel battles, Verstappen finally took second come lap 22 before rapidly closing in on Russell. But just as he cut the gap to two seconds, Mercedes pitted the Briton with Red Bull making the mistake of keeping Verstappen out for five extra laps.
A mistake because the Dutchman rejoined 10s behind, putting him back to square one. Verstappen still sought after Russell and cut the deficit to just 1.6s across the final 11 laps, leaving Red Bull to think about what could have been.
If it weren’t for that wrong strategic call, Verstappen could easily have taken victory that day. So it was very much a champion-like performance.
– Ed Hardy
Oscar Piastri at the Japanese Grand Prix
Pause for a moment and try to think when was the last time Oscar Piastri won a Formula 1 Grand Prix? It may take a while… Could it be Zandvoort, almost a year ago? Yep, that’s the one.
31 August 2025 was pretty much the last day we saw the Piastri who looked like a world champion in the making. That day, team-mate Norris retired due to an oil leak, stretching the Australian’s championship lead to a massive – and, it seemed at the time, decisive – 34 points. Piastri would’ve won that race regardless, as at that point he was clearly the faster McLaren driver. He had Norris covered – both in the race and in the title fight.
Whatever happened next, we’ve almost never seen the same Piastri show up at a race track on a racing Sunday. Bar a single day at the end of March this year in Japan.
After a disappointing crash on the lap to the grid in Melbourne and a DNS in China, Oscar seemed like a man who couldn’t catch a break after spectacularly losing out in the 2025 title battle. But Suzuka had all the hallmarks of the start of 2025 for Piastri.
He was consistently faster – by around a quarter of a second across all three qualifying segments – than Norris, something that has been a rarity since that same Zandvoort weekend. Then came an exceptional start, made even more impressive by the fact it was actually his first of the year, capitalising on the Mercedes pair’s slow getaway to convert P3 on the grid into the lead. Then a yo-yo moment with Russell on lap eight saw the Australian keep the lead for longer, despite Mercedes clearly having the fastest car at that point in the season.
“If we hold track position, I think we can hang on to this,” he then reported back to the pitlane by lap 15, with the tone of an aircraft pilot informing the passengers that the flight will arrive right on time.
He comfortably kept the lead over Russell after the pitstops, but it simply wasn’t meant to be – Oliver Bearman’s massive crash caused a safety car at exactly the right moment for Antonelli to get a cheap stop and leapfrog both.
While he couldn’t fight the Italian after that, Piastri simply kept clear of the pack of battling Ferraris and Russell, leaving them to scramble for the final podium position. Norris wasn’t even close to it.
– Oleg Karpov
George Russell at the Australian Grand Prix
This season has obviously not gone as expected for Russell, who is third in the standings with a 59-point deficit to his championship-leading team-mate Antonelli. But, as Oleg rightfully mentioned with Piastri, there was a time when the Mercedes driver looked like a world champion in waiting and that was the 2026 opener in Melbourne.
Russell understandably arrived as the pre-season title favourite and he backed it up by taking pole in a Silver Arrows 1-2, three tenths ahead of Antonelli and a dominant eight tenths over third-placed Isack Hadjar in the Red Bull.
It was the Russell that F1 had seen in 2025 and the one that was expected for 2026: a grand prix winning veteran now primed for his maiden title tilt. “A great day,” he confidently said. “We knew there was a lot of potential in the car, but until you get to this first Saturday of the season, you never know. But it really came alive this afternoon.”
The same story kind of followed the next day, though not as easy. Russell endured a poor start – a theme for Mercedes in the early rounds – as Ferrari’s Leclerc took the lead on lap one before jousting the Briton during the opening stint.
It was yo-yo racing at its most extreme, but the Scuderia’s attempt to pit Leclerc 13 laps later than Russell massively backfired as the Monegasque rejoined 16 seconds behind. From there, the Mercedes driver was well in control and cruised to victory in an eventual Silver Arrows 1-2 by three seconds.
“Very nice, very nice,” Russell buoyantly reacted. “I like this car, I like this engine – great job!”
The drive was certainly up there as one of his finest and although Russell was behind Leclerc at times early on, there was always the feeling that he’d still end up taking the chequered flag.
– Ed Hardy
Pierre Gasly at the Japanese Grand Prix
Pierre Gasly’s Japanese Grand Prix performance has perhaps been the best drive by any midfield runner this season.
Kicking off the competitive sessions in impressive fashion, the Alpine driver outqualified both Red Bull racers by several tenths on his way to seventh on the grid.
Gasly held off fellow Frenchman Hadjar at the start to maintain that position; he understandably couldn’t match the frontrunners’ pace but, ahead of the first round of pitstops, he led Verstappen by three seconds and the second-best midfield driver, Esteban Ocon, by 14 seconds.
However, the safety car intervention for Bearman’s hefty crash bunched up the pack, and Gasly immediately found himself under intense pressure from Verstappen – pressure he successfully withstood throughout the last 26 laps of the race.
“We all know Max is never giving up,” Gasly commented. “We were strong in different parts of the lap, so it just made my life not too easy. I had to play a bit smart with my battery whenever I could see it was getting close.”
Under the chequered flag, ninth-placed Liam Lawson was 18 seconds adrift of Gasly – a gap accrued over the aforementioned post-neutralisation distance, equating to seven tenths per lap.
“It’s the perfect weekend,” Gasly reckoned. It’s hard to disagree.
– Ben Vinel
We want to hear from you!
Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.
Take our survey
– The Autosport.com Team
Read the full article here