Motoring News

From RC car champion to Formula 1 race winner and championship contender, discover how Oscar Piastri’s journey from Melbourne to the top of motorsport unfolded ahead of his home Australian Grand Prix.

Isack Hadjar has admitted that he felt the “consistency was nowhere” in his first sessions as a Red Bull driver, but insisted that the issues he faced were expected and should not affect his performance in the Australian Grand Prix.

The 2026 season is underway at Albert Park in Melbourne and we've complied a guide to what bettors need to know about the circuit before making their predictions.

Felix Rosenqvist’s race weekend got off to a rough start after crashing in opening practice for the Good Ranchers 250 at Phoenix Raceway.
The 34-year-old Swedish native was rolling around the 1-mile tri-oval when his #60 Meyer Shank Racing Honda snapped midway through the corner of Turn 3 and backed hard into the outside wall. He had logged six laps, with a best of 167.250mph, prior to the ...Keep reading

The fuss raised by the Aston Martin Formula 1 team at the press conference held in the Melbourne paddock on Thursday morning has a purpose.
Adrian Newey and Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe told media that the vibrations generated by the Honda V6 are so intense that they even affect the drivers.
"The power unit is the source of the vibrations," said Aston team boss Newey ...Keep reading

Ahead of the Formula 1 2026 season opener in Melbourne, Motorsport.com is returning to the world of F1 Fantasy with its own featured league.
As the new campaign throws up plenty of unknowns that will be revealed layer by layer in Australia and beyond, our F1 writers have carefully tried to handpick their ideal fantasy team, and you can compete against them by joining the Motorsport.com - Race ...Keep reading

The Australian Grand Prix qualifying session may be chaotic with Formula 1’s new-for-2026 cars, as believed by the likes of Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu.
F1’s revamped power units feature a near-50:50 split between combustion and electric power, which has put much greater emphasis on energy management as drivers need to harvest and deploy energy strategically to achieve the best possible lap ...Keep reading

Fernando Alonso feels that the Aston Martin team are “embracing the challenge” posed by their early-season struggles, with the Spaniard hopeful that the progress within the squad will be “visible in lap time as soon as possible”.

Formula 1 2026 is go, go, go as the 11 teams that will contest this year's World Championship hit the track for Friday practice for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. With so much uncertainty about the true pecking order after pre-season testing in Bahrain, Friday's two one-hour practice sessions at Albert Park shone a little more light on the current state of play...

Adrian Newey reckons Fernando Alonso is in a “hard mental place” after Aston Martin’s disastrous start to the new Formula 1 rules cycle in 2026.
The Silverstone outfit is clearly F1’s worst team and there are problems all over its AMR26, which is believed to be restricted to 25 laps in Sunday’s Melbourne season opener. 
This is the result of excessive vibrations in the new Honda ...Keep reading

This Friday marked the first day of practice for a grand prix weekend in the 2026 Formula 1 season. With the numerous changes introduced by the new regulations, particularly in the way these cars are driven, the approach to free practice is different from previous seasons.
However, since this is the first race under the new rules, many aspects remain unclear for the teams. When asked about his ...Keep reading

The FIA has tweaked the Formula 1 driver guidelines for the 2026 campaign with a focus on more flexibility and common sense being applied in what is seen as a big win for those racing.
That is because on numerous occasions the stewards have been criticised for using these guidelines as gospel, rather than just being a basis to help come to a well thought-out solution.
Brazil last year was ...Keep reading

It’s a cliche, but no less true for being oft repeated, to say that “it’s the hope that kills you.” In Formula 1 terms, this old adage will be most familiar to Ferrari fans: as the 2026 season begins, it's a little over 18 years and four months since Kimi Raikkonen claimed the drivers’ title with victory in the final round of the 2007 season at Interlagos.
No other team in Formula 1 ...Keep reading

Max Verstappen says Red Bull’s lowly position in Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix pecking order, following Friday practice, is no surprise to him.
Verstappen was sixth-fastest in Free Practice 2, 0.637s slower than pacesetter Oscar Piastri and 0.423s behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli, while his deficit to Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was 0.316s.
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George Russell has been given a warning and a reprimand following a pair of incidents in Free Practice 2 for Formula 1’s Australian Grand Prix.
The reprimand is the more serious sanction as five of them automatically translate into a 10-place grid penalty (provided at least four are given for a driving infringement).
The incident in question happened early in the session when Russell ...Keep reading

The team reflect on the first day of on-track action in Australia.

The 2026 Formula 1 campaign is debuting an entirely new set of regulations with changes to both the chassis and engine, the latter of which has become the biggest talking point.
That's because an F1 power unit is now more reliant on electrical energy with a near 50-50 split against the internal combustion engine, meaning battery management is playing a greater role than ever.
It might often ...Keep reading

Charles Leclerc thinks Ferrari are “on the back foot” heading into the first weekend of the 2026 F1 campaign, with the “very, very strong” Mercedes appearing to be “a bit more in front than what I would have wanted”.

Mercedes were left with plenty to debrief after Kimi Antonelli and George Russell placed P2 and P3 in FP2 for the Australian Grand Prix.

Join McLaren's Oscar Piastri for his pace-setting lap on Friday at the Australian Grand Prix.