It was far tighter than he would have wanted, but Lando Norris eventually completed his superb season as the winner of the 2025 Drivers’ World Championship.
For much of the campaign, it was his teammate, Oscar Piastri who was ahead of Norris and then his closest competitor. Then, a second-half resurgence from Red Bull Racing made it a very close race.
Max Verstappen won six of the last nine races, including the final three, to blaze past Piastri and put the heat on Norris. In the end, fourth in Qatar and third in Abu Dhabi was enough to get Norris over the line for his first F1 title.
Now, with teams set, new rules coming into play, and the calendar released, he’s an early look at Norris’ first defence and the 2026 Formula One season.
2026 F1 Team Line-ups
Each year, we see several teams change their drivers, often bringing in a reliable journeyman or promoting a younger talent. For 2026, Mercedes was expected to make a huge move, but that didn’t come to anything.
So, this is how each F1 team looks to set its line-up for the 2026 season:
- McLaren: Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri
- Mercedes: George Russell, Kimi Antonelli
- Red Bull: Max Verstappen, Isack Hadjar
- Ferrari: Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc
- Williams: Carlos Sainz, Alex Albon
- Racing Bulls: Arvid Lindblad, Liam Lawson
- Aston Martin: Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll
- Haas: Esteban Ocon, Ollie Bearman
- Audi: Nico Hulkenberg, Gabriel Bortoleto
- Alpine: Pierre Gasly, Franco Colapinto
- Cadillac: Sergio Pérez, Valtteri Bottas
Audi and Cadillac will be making their F1 debuts in 2026, siding with tried-and-trusted line-ups to try to be as competitive as possible from the first lights out.
Of them all, McLaren and Mercedes are being looked at as having the best line-ups across two cars. In the motorsports odds, they’re both at 11/8 to take the Constructors’ crown.
New 2026 F1 Regulations
With a new season comes a new set of construction and race day regulations from the FIA, but the collection of changes coming in 2026 look to be much more significant than in recent years.
The move towards being more sustainable and efficient takes a huge step forward. Next season will feature cars that are 30kg lighter with a new power unit that has a even split of electric and petrol power.
Having lighter cars will make them much more agile to try to create even better on-track battles. For this, there’ll be new active aerodynamics that let cars move their front and rear wings, plus there’s a new overtaking system.
When a car is within one second of the car in front, the driver will get to trigger an extra burst of additional battery power to increase their competitive push.
Even with such sweeping changes, this year’s most impressive drivers in the fastest current cars are tipped to be at the front again. The betting lines currently have Verstappen at 5/2 and Norris at 11/4 to take the crown.
F1 2026 Calendar
The 2026 Formula One season starts in March, but before that, we already know of plenty of key dates that could be quite telling.
Pre-season testing will take place over three sessions in Spain and Bahrain, with those being:
- 26-30 January: Circuit de Barceolna-Catalunya testing
- 11-13 February: Bahrain International Circuit testing
- 18-20 February: Second Bahrain International Circuit testing
Teams will also begin to publicly reveal their 2026 cars around this time. To date, only Aston Martin has revealed an exact time for their reveal, with the AMR26 card being shown off on 9 February.
Next, it’s onto the 2026 Formula One calendar, from Australia in March to Abu Dhabi in December, as follows:
- 8 March: Australian Grand Prix
- 15 March: Chinese Grand Prix
- 29 March: Japanese Grand Prix
- 12 April: Bahrain Grand Prix
- 19 April: Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
- 3 May: Miami Grand Prix
- 24 May: Canadian Grand Prix
- 7 June: Monaco Grand Prix
- 14 June: Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix
- 28 June: Austrian Grand Prix
- 5 July: British Grand Prix
- 19 July: Belgian Grand Prix
- 26 July: Hungarian Grand Prix
- 23 August: Dutch Grand Prix
- 6 September: Italian Grand Prix
- 13 September: Spanish Grand Prix
- 26 September: Azerbaijan Grand Prix
- 11 October: Singapore Grand Prix
- 25 October: United States Grand Prix
- 1 November: Mexico City Grand Prix
- 8 November: São Paulo Grand Prix
- 21 November: Las Vegas Grand Prix
- 29 November: Qatar Grand Prix
- 6 December: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
On six of those race weekends, teams will also get to compete for extra points in the sprints. Here’s when those 2026 F1 sprint races will take place:
- Chinese Grand Prix (2nd Race Weekend)
- Miami Grand Prix (6th Race Weekend)
- Canadian Grand Prix (7th Race Weekend)
- British Grand Prix (11th Race Weekend)
- Dutch Grand Prix (14th Race Weekend)
- Singapore Grand Prix (18th Race Weekend)
For each of the sprint race weekends, teams will get to earn up to an extra eight points towards their Championship standings.
