Lawrence Stroll, the billionaire owner of the Aston Martin team and father of one of its drivers, Lance Stroll, has ploughed a vast amount of money into the state-of-the-art facilities that now exist at its high-tech Silverstone base. The outfit’s senior management has also been generously remunerated, including, of course, its new chief designer and team principal, Adrian Newey, but the structure has often resembled a revolving door, with various key individuals arriving and leaving.

Stroll senior had understandably expected a very positive return on his investments as he tried to push the team toward the front of the grid, but pre-season testing proved, to put it mildly, to be a highly embarrassing and unmitigated public disaster. This understandably left the Canadian far from happy, with questions raised about both Newey’s input and particularly that of its power unit supplier, Honda. How this situation then proved to be beyond the team’s worst nightmares in Australia, as they were woefully ill-prepared and really struggled on track.

Aston Martin’s other current driver is the veteran Spaniard, Fernando Alonso, who will be 45 in July and who made his F1 debut 25 years ago at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix in a Minardi. His two Formula 1 Drivers’ titles were earned way back in 2005 and 2006 at the wheel of a Renault, and he hasn’t won a single Grand Prix since his home event in 2013, but he still retains a real passion for racing and not just F1. Dependent upon how this season goes for Aston Martin, 2026 could well be Alonso’s last year in world motorsport’s premier category.



Red Bull’s 28-year-old Max Verstappen, who has already made it very clear that he has absolutely no intention of carrying on in F1 into his 40s, as Alonso and Lewis Hamilton have, already has significant interests in other forms of four-wheeled motorsport, including endurance racing. Tied to this, he and Alonso have already expressed a real desire to race together in the iconic Le Mans 24 Heures annual event if an opportunity presents itself. Alonso has already competed in it twice with Toyota Gazoo Racing in 2018 and 2019 and won on each occasion.

What would make this potential scenario even more interesting is if Alonso and Verstappen could persuade Sebastian Vettel to step out of retirement and join them in a three-man team with 10 F1 world championship titles between them.

Elsewhere in the paddock, rumours persist that the former long-time Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, may well be set to return to Alpine as a part owner and member of its management structure. Alpine finished last season at the bottom of the constructors championship rankings, but a move over the winter to now have Mercedes rather than Renault power units can only help improve its competitiveness.

After 20 years at the helm of Red Bull, Horner was ousted by the global drinks company’s senior management immediately after last summer’s British Grand Prix and subsequently received a substantial payoff in respect of the remaining years on his contract. He has since expressed a desire to return to the sport, which he considers “unfinished business”, but only if an opportunity arises that enables him to become a shareholder as well as a manager, unlike at Red Bull, where he was simply an employee. Horner has said that he would only return to a team he thinks can win, not just to be back in the F1 paddock.



A hot topic of discussion during the build-up to the new season had been in relation to the new power unit compression ratio requirements and an ingenious solution devised by Mercedes to increase the performance of its own unit slightly. This led Audi, Ferrari, and Honda to submit a joint letter to the FIA governing body, questioning the legality of what Mercedes had achieved. The FIA understandably did not want the start of the 2026 campaign to be blighted by arguments over the specific wording of power unit regulations, and ultimately this wording was amended as a compromise solution, with an additional technical test to be implemented with effect from 1 June. Fortunately this outcome seems to have been acceptable to all, including Mercedes.

In other news, Lewis Hamilton’s new race engineer, Cedric Grosjean, was spotted in the Ferrari motorhome in the Albert Park paddock, although Carlo Santi will remain in the role for at least the first three rounds while Grosjean familiarises himself with the team’s procedures and personnel. Grosjean used to work with Oscar Piastri at McLaren and has been on gardening leave since leaving the Woking-based outfit. The Frenchman will ultimately replace Riccardo Adami, with whom Hamilton had an often fractious relationship last season during the multiple champion’s difficult first year with Ferrari.

Also, on the weekend prior to the Australian round, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc married his fiancée, Alexandra Saint Mleux, in Monaco, driving through the Principality in a classic multi-million-pound 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa. Most F1 drivers have long chosen to live in Monaco for tax avoidance reasons, as does Leclerc, but at least he was born and grew up there and is a genuine Monégasque.