DBMotorsport

  Abstract With the Qatar Grand Prix only weeks away, the season finale formally remains in the Gulf while Imola quietly prepares for the end of the season. Starting from the cancellations of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and the protests of MotoGP riders, this article explains how and why the Romagna circuit is the most solid solution to close the season, with an Italian champion already crowned and the name of the race still to be settled. The Background The Bahrain Grand Prix was held in Sepang on 4th October, while the Saudi Arabian one was not hosted at all. It all stems from the war with Iran that began at the end of February and led, in mid-March, the FIA and Formula 1 to cancel the two April races and cut the calendar to 22 Grand Prix. The World Motor Sport Council ratified the change on 26th March. [1] The calendar remains an act of the Federation, and the Federation has shown that it can rewrite it mid-season: a useful precedent for what comes next. The next question co...

Abstract On 16th September, the World Motor Sport Council gave the green light to Formula 1's 2027 calendar: twenty-four Grands Prix across twenty-two countries, ten Sprint races and the welcome return of two circuits. This article maps out what changes from 2026, highlights what genuinely works in the new structure, and identifies the problems still shaping Formula One's annual planning. What Changes From 2026 The 2027 Formula 1 calendar keeps twenty-four Grands Prix across twenty-two countries and five continents. The season opens in Bahrain on 12th-14th March, preceded by a single four-day test at Sakhir from 24th to 27th February, a more traditional format than the extended testing programme the new technical regulations forced on 2026. Australia loses its role as season opener and becomes the third round instead, on 4th April. Zandvoort drops out of the calendar as its contract expires at the end of the second cycle that began in 2021, and so does the Spanish Grand Pri...

  Abstract The first article of this series [1] mapped the visible architecture of an F1 team: who leads, who engineers, who executes. This one goes further. It follows four specific roles through the people who currently hold them, and through two careers that has crossed both sides of the regulatory table, FIA to team or vice versa. None of these four people has ever touched a steering wheel despite all four carry more weight, right now, over where a championship goes than most of the drivers actually chasing it. The Team Principal: A view From the Regulator's Side Laurent Mekies became Red Bull Racing's Team Principal midway through 2025, taking over from Christian Horner after two decades in the job. What is important to underline in this change at the apex of the team is the résumé behind the new TP. From 2014 Mekies worked inside the FIA itself, first as Safety Director, then as F1 Deputy Race Director, before Ferrari hired him as Sporting Director in 2018. He has ...

  Abstract This article is written as a tool for dialogue, not confrontation, in the belief that regulatory debate is what actually moves this sport forward. What happened on Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps produced three separate incidents that, taken together, circle back to a question already raised in this space over the past few weeks: what happens when a regulation hands over to discretion something that could instead rest on a verifiable standard. Lap One at Les Combes Lap one, Turn 5: Lewis Hamilton and George Russell collide. Russell goes for the outside line; Hamilton, defending on the inside, understeers into him, catches Russell's car with his left-front wheel and sends him into the gravel, out of the race. FIA Document 57 holds Hamilton wholly responsible for the collision but hands him a 5-second penalty rather than the standard 10, citing mitigating factors: he acknowledged Russell's presence, tried to leave space, lost the front end through no aggressive intent,...

  Abstract This article is not intended as an accusation against the Federation. Rather, it is intended as a tool for dialogue and comparison, based on the belief that it is technical and regulatory debate, rather than confrontation, that moves the sport forward. However, what happened at Silverstone on Sunday, at the end of the 2026 British Grand Prix, highlights an issue that was identified well before the start of the season in an academic paper written by Magdalena Ferrer, Anirban Aly Mandal and myself, which compared the 2024, 2025 and 2026 Sporting Regulations. The paper concluded that granting Race Control greater discretion without providing clear objective criteria would inevitably lead to the kind of inconsistencies witnessed on the track on Sunday. A Longstanding Flaw The starting point here is not new. The paper said as much already [1] . Article B1.8.6 of the 2026 Regulations gives Race Control absolute discretion over whether a driver should hand back an advantage...