A Kimi Antonelli title on home soil?? Plus: Midseason team grades

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I’m thinking about how this Formula 1 season might end — not in terms of the title tussle involving Mercedes drivers Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, but instead, how F1 can logistically schedule its end-of-season calendar around the current geopolitical state.

I’m Alex, and with Luke Smith and Madeline Coleman enjoying well-earned vacations over the F1 summer break, it’s just me in your inbox today.

Imola Circuit: The case for the Italian track’s return

As of Monday, F1 is officially on its summer shutdown — the mandated two-week period during which no work can be done on the cars, so everyone pretty much just goes on holiday (or vacation, for our American readers!).

For those working in the paddock, there’s two real choices to be made:

1. Get on yet another plane but go somewhere to relax.
2. Avoid airports at all costs and catch up on sleep at home (my preference, FWIW).

Anyway, we’re halfway through a season without an end date, since the two races scheduled in Qatar and Abu Dhabi are unsure to happen due to the ongoing Middle East conflict.

This has already led to the Bahrain Grand Prix (sort of) being canceled, twice, with the event now taking place at Malaysia’s Sepang track in early October.

That strange deal came about very quickly, as F1 looked to adapt its contingency plan to try and ensure at least 21 races could take place (the critical number to fulfill commercial contracts, including TV broadcast deals).

The decisions for Qatar and Abu Dhabi will be known by mid-September. If they can’t go ahead as planned, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said a replacement race will happen somewhere in Europe. 

This means the season will either be capped at 22 races (if Qatar and Abu Dhabi are canceled) or 23 (if the schedule runs its planned course, with the finale at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina track slated for Dec. 6).

The front-running track to step in should the need arise, however, is Imola, which lost its place on the F1 calendar after the fifth edition of the Emilia-Romagna GP took place in 2025.

The Portimão track in Portugal has been floated as a likely replacement. But as it’s being reconfigured ahead of the returning Portuguese GP in 2027, it seems it can’t complete its construction and host the season-ending race at the same time.

Enter Imola.

My first thought was indeed, “Imola in December will be so cold the tires won’t work!” It was ridiculous. I know. I forgot there’s already proof against such a pessimistic assumption.

Let’s turn to the Las Vegas GP:

• Ahead of the first F1 race in Sin City in 41 years, it was widely assumed the chilly November temperatures in the Nevada desert along with a very smooth track surface and circuit layout featuring long straights (that mean tire temperatures drop) would mean cars slithering off into barriers galore.
• Not only did that not happen, the 2023 Vegas race action was pretty good. And when it rained ahead of qualifying in 2025, we were treated to a great display of driver talent on a course that is far from the most technical for racers in normal conditions.
• “If I look at the statistics of the temperature in Europe in that time (December), it’s not as cool as Las Vegas’ average temperature while we are racing,” Domenicali told reporters in a call last week. “We hope that there will be no snow …”
• F1 even considered having a second Vegas race for the season’s conclusion, but decided against it.

I think Imola is a very good choice as an alternative alternative. 

Historically, Imola hasn’t produced the best racing action, as the narrow course hampered overtaking chances in previous eras, where aerodynamics made the biggest difference. But the same was true of Barcelona, and that was a great watch with the new cars this year!

Imola’s layout is actually good news for the drivers that detest these cars, because it will not greatly drain the engine’s energy, meaning its classic corners should remain more of the challenge the drivers desire.

And then there’s the track’s setting in Italy.

There are many Italian ties in F1. Domenicali is from Imola, located in Northern Italy, roughly an hour drive southeast of Bologna, where Antonelli was born and raised. If Antonelli — who leads the drivers’ standings by 50 points — succeeds in winning this year’s world title, he will become the first Italian F1 champion in a staggering 73 years (after Alberto Ascari in 1953, when F1 was technically F2!).

Even if Antonelli is unofficially crowned early, a season finale on home soil would be something to behold. Plus, it would give Imola back the race it lost in the terrible floods of 2023.

Now, on to one of my favorite topics: rating F1 things.

Report Cards: Grade each team in our survey!

Before they headed off on vacation, Luke and Madeline wrote a series of features for The Athletic that both look back at the season to date and the biggest talking points of the campaign still to come.

They kicked things off this week with our annual midseason team report cards. Luke and Madeline looked at all 11 squads and gave them a grade that covers all they have achieved (or not!) over the first half of the season.

There are a few surprises in the list. Mercedes does not come out with the top grade even as it holds commanding leads in both the drivers’ standings (Antonelli leads with 219 points, George Russell is in third with 160) and team standings (370 points).

Racing Bulls pipped Mercedes for our top grade, but there should be no surprise to see Aston Martin handed the sole F for its awful season so far.

The only upside for the green team is that its Hungary aerodynamic upgrade worked well. But lots of that came down to weight saving. The AMR26 was very heavy through the first half of the season, and remaking aero parts in lighter metal at the same time as refining their shape for a downforce boost is a surefire way to rapidly gain lap time.

Sitting 10th (of 11) in the team standings, Aston needs to find much more time if it is to compete for regular points before the end of the season. That places plenty of pressure on Honda’s engine upgrade coming next time out at Zandvoort, on the other side of the break.

Now we want to hear from you! What do you make of our midseason report cards? You can grade each team for yourself, and submit your scores to us here. 

I’ll reveal the results in next week’s PT.

Outside the Points

FIA single seater director Nikolas Tombazis faced more questions around driver dissatisfaction with the new engines while doing the media rounds before summer break. He claimed the FIA knew exactly what was going to happen, but that it was prevented from changing the rules earlier because too many manufacturers objected. Classic Piranha Club, shooting itself in the foot once again …

The official F1 website canvassed the opinions of six F1 legends on the season so far. I was particularly fascinated by Juan Pablo Montoya suggesting Antonelli is harder for Russell to beat in the intra-Mercedes title battle because “the guy is so nice.”

And the FIA released information for the “Bahraysian GP” in October, with the first F1 race at the Sepang track since 2017 set to start at 3 p.m. local time, so … 3 a.m. ET.

Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.