It’s interesting that Toto is talking about fighting for championships. Whilst they won 1/6 of the races last year and you can look at it and say they’ve only got to take a small step, it’s also true to say that their success last year was largely due to their strength being everyone else’s weakness and vice versa, which is quite a hard problem to overcome. No result is better for the sport than Antonelli winning in Aus though, so that’s something to hope for.
Let's be honest, Merc messed up for 2 years with their side pod disappearance. Only last year did they start to recover but did not build a car that played to Lewis's driving style. Maybe this year will be different. I believe several teams will have optimised their potential this year. Might be a year where the driver makes the difference.
Agree, there should be several steps forward across the grid initially - where it becomes intriguing is how much resource teams want to deploy in the development race versus their 2026 focus. Everyone is looking to come out of the blocks fast. We are already seeing significant refinement, it could be an absolute cavalry charge in the opening races if they are closely matched. Merc are a live outsider- I’m really intrigued to see their cars visual behaviour tomorrow onwards in testing. It was very skittish last year but then did produce decent times when the wick was turned up on day 3, but you knew immediately from its behaviour that it would cause them trouble. If they’ve tempered that down and made it more compliant they won’t be far away. Hopefully can catch some footage tomorrow!
Look at the detail around the edges here. Goodness me. They haven’t lay down easily have they- they’re pushing it for one last hybrid hurrah.
