Key events
Lando Norris recalls being rendered speechless with joy when he was given his first contract with McLaren. Sitting in the cramped office of a paddock truck, the confirmation that he had made it to Formula One left him “very smiley for a long time”. Seven years on, he enters the new season having achieved his lifelong ambition of becoming world champion and is wearing an equally irrepressible grin as he sets about defending his title.
For the first time, Lando Norris will enter the season as champion, seeing off a late charge by Max Verstappen during the tail end of the 2025 to break the Dutchman’s longstanding stranglehold on the driver’s championship.
And as he told Giles Richards last month, the Brit feels ready to go back-to-back.
If you’re just popping your head back in for the first time since last season, I’m afraid there’s a whole new vocabulary that you’re going to need to come to grips with. There’s now hybrid engines and active aerodynamics to contend with, as well as the departure of the DRS and the arrival of overtake mode and recharge mode.
Didn’t do the required reading and have no idea what I’m talking about? Don’t worry, Giles Richards has you covered.
Of course, this is F1, where every team is doing everything they can to harness the most amount of speed possible from their cars – with their tinkering always pushing right up against the limit of what is or may be acceptable under the regulations.
Thus, we’ve already had a blow-up under the new regulations before a race has even been staged, this one focused on accusations that Mercedes’ had used thermal expansion of components to exploit a loophole in regulations surrounding engine compression ratios.
Preamble
Joey Lynch
Howdy all, it’s ya boi Joey Lynch here, and welcome to The Guardian’s live coverage of the opening round of the 2026 Formula One campaign, emanating to you from a somewhat cloudy Melbourne.
It’s been a long build-up to the new campaign, one which reached a dramatic crescendo over the past fortnight when the United States and Israel’s attack on Iran spilled over into rocket and drone attacks and the shuttering of air space and cancellations of flights across the Middle East.
Not only did this disrupt preparations, but it also forced up to a thousand members of F1’s travelling roadshow to make new new travel arrangements that would enable them to land Down Under in time. Fortunately, pretty much all of them have.
The tour’s trip to albert park this year also marks the first time we’re seeing teams compete under the new, wide-ranging regulations in action that have been put in place for 2026: the cars made smaller in size and weight with the intent of making them more nimble facilitating improved racing and powered by new, hybrid engines.
We got our first look at these new beasts in action yesterday during FP1 and FP2, with the Mercedes-powered teams delivering on the expectations that they’ll be on the ones to beat by going fastest in FP2 (we’ll always have FP1, Ferrari). Much of the day’s events, however, where overshadowed by whatever the heck is going on at Aston Martin and the non-zero possibility that the cars might vibrate so hard they’ll send Fernando Alonso into the speed force if he pushes the car too hard.
And with qualification taking place today, we’ve got even more to look forward to. That starts at 4pm AEDT/5am GMT.
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